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diff --git a/27784.txt b/27784.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f648a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/27784.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6329 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Tales of the Malayan Coast, by Rounsevelle Wildman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tales of the Malayan Coast + From Penang to the Philippines + +Author: Rounsevelle Wildman + +Release Date: January 12, 2009 [EBook #27784] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF THE MALAYAN COAST *** + + + + +Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + Tales of the Malayan Coast + + From Penang to the Philippines + + By + + Rounsevelle Wildman + + Consul General of the United States at Hong Kong + + Illustrated by Henry Sandham + + + Boston + + Lothrop Publishing Company + + + + + Copyright, 1899, + By + + Lothrop Publishing Company. + + Norwood Press + J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith + Norwood Mass. U.S.A. + + + + + + To + Our Hero + And my friend + Admiral George Dewey, U.S.N. + I Dedicate this Book + + + + + + Flagship Olympia, + Manila, 21 Sept., 1898. + + My Dear Wildman:-- + + Yours of 12th instant is at hand. I am much flattered by + your request to dedicate your book to me, and would be + pleased to have you do so. + + With kindest regards, I am, + Very truly yours, + + George Dewey. + + + + + + + +PREFACE + + +These stories are the result of nine years' residence and experience +on the Malayan coast--that land of romance and adventure which the +ancients knew as the Golden Chersonesus, and which, in modern times, +has been brought again into the atmosphere of valor and performance +by Rajah Brooke of Sarawak, the hero of English expansion, and +Admiral George Dewey of the Asiatic squadron, the hero of American +achievement. The author, in his official duties as Special Commissioner +of the United States for the Straits Settlement and Siam, and, later, +as Consul General of the United States at Hong Kong, has mingled with +and studied the diverse people of the Malayan coast, from the Sultan +of Johore and Aguinaldo the Filipino to the lowest Eurasian and "China +boy" of that wonderful Oriental land. These stories are based on his +experiences afloat and ashore, and are offered to the American public +at this time when all glimpses of the land that Columbus sailed to +find are of especial interest to the modern possessors of the land +he really did discover. + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Page + Baboo's Good Tiger 9 + Baboo's Pirates 28 + How we Played Robinson Crusoe 47 + The Sarong 66 + The Kris 74 + The White Rajah of Borneo 81 + Amok! 101 + Lepas's Revenge 130 + King Solomon's Mines 147 + Busuk 181 + A Crocodile Hunt 200 + A New Year's Day in Malaya 219 + In the Burst of the Southwest Monsoon 230 + A Pig Hunt on Mount Ophir 254 + In the Court of Johore 270 + In the Golden Chersonese 293 + A Fight with Illanum Pirates 321 + + + + + + + + + + +TALES OF THE MALAYAN COAST +FROM PENANG TO THE PHILIPPINES + + +BABOO'S GOOD TIGER + +A Tale of the Malacca Jungle + + +Aboo Din's first-born, Baboo, was only four years old when he had +his famous adventure with the tiger he had found sleeping in the +hot lallang grass within the distance of a child's voice from Aboo +Din's bungalow. + +For a long time before that hardly a day had passed but Aboo-Din, +who was our syce, or groom, and wore the American colors proudly on +his right arm, came in from the servants' quarters with an anxious +look on his kindly brown face and asked respectfully for the tuan +(lord) or mem (lady). + +"What is it, Aboo Din?" the mistress would inquire, as visions of +Baboo drowned in the great Shanghai jar, or of Baboo lying crushed +by a boa among the yellow bamboos beyond the hedge, passed swiftly +through her mind. + +"Mem see Baboo?" came the inevitable question. + +It was unnecessary to say more. At once Ah Minga, the "boy"; Zim, the +cook; the kebuns (gardeners); the tukanayer (water-boy), and even the +sleek Hindu dirzee, who sat sewing, dozing, and chewing betel-nut, +on the shady side of the veranda, turned out with one accord and +commenced a systematic search for the missing Baboo. + +Sometimes he was no farther off than the protecting screen of the +"compound" hedge, or the cool, green shadows beneath the bungalow. But +oftener the government Sikhs had to be appealed to, and Kampong Glam +in Singapore searched from the great market to the courtyards of +Sultan Ali. It was useless to whip him, for whippings seemed only +to make Baboo grow. He would lisp serenely as Aboo Din took down +the rattan withe from above the door, "Baboo baniak jahat!" (Baboo +very bad!) and there was something so charmingly impersonal in all +his mischief, that we came between his own brown body and the rod, +time and again. There was nothing distinctive in Baboo's features or +form. To the casual observer he might have been any one of a half-dozen +of his playmates. Like them, he went about perfectly naked, his soft, +brown skin shining like polished rosewood in the fierce Malayan sun. + +His hair was black, straight, and short, and his eyes as black as +coals. Like his companions, he stood as straight as an arrow, and +could carry a pail of water on his head without spilling a drop. + +He, too, ate rice three times a day. It puffed him up like a little +old man, which added to his grotesqueness and gave him a certain +air of dignity that went well with his features when they were in +repose. Around his waist he wore a silver chain with a silver heart +suspended from it. Its purpose was to keep off the evil spirits. + +There was always an atmosphere of sandalwood and Arab essence about +Baboo that reminded me of the holds of the old sailing-ships that used +to come into Boston harbor from the Indies. I think his mother must +have rubbed the perfumes into his hair as the one way of declaring to +the world her affection for him. She could not give him clothes, or +ornaments, or toys: such was not the fashion of Baboo's race. Neither +was he old enough to wear the silk sarong that his Aunt Fatima had +woven for him on her loom. + +Baboo had been well trained, and however lordly he might be in the +quarters, he was marked in his respect to the mistress. He would +touch his forehead to the red earth when I drove away of a morning to +the office; though the next moment I might catch him blowing a tiny +ball of clay from his sumpitan into the ear of his father, the syce, +as he stood majestically on the step behind me. + +Baboo went to school for two hours every day to a fat old Arab +penager, or teacher, whose schoolroom was an open stall, and whose +only furniture a bench, on which he sat cross-legged, and flourished +a whip in one hand and a chapter of the Koran in the other. + +There were a dozen little fellows in the school; all naked. They +stood up in line, and in a soft musical treble chanted in chorus the +glorious promises of the Koran, even while their eyes wandered from +the dusky corner where a cheko lizard was struggling with an atlas +moth, to the frantic gesticulations of a naked Hindu who was calling +his meek-eyed bullocks hard names because they insisted on lying down +in the middle of the road for their noonday siesta. + +Baboo's father, Aboo Din, was a Hadji, for he had been to Mecca. When +nothing else could make Baboo forget the effects of the green durian +he had eaten, Aboo Din would take the child on his knees and sing +to him of his trip to Mecca, in a quaint, monotonous voice, full of +sorrowful quavers. Baboo believed he himself could have left Singapore +any day and found Mecca in the dark. + +We had been living some weeks in a government bungalow, fourteen miles +from Singapore, across the island that looks out on the Straits of +Malacca. The fishing and hunting were excellent. I had shot wild pig, +deer, tapirs, and for some days had been getting ready to track down +a tiger that had been prowling in the jungle about the bungalow. + +But of a morning, as we lay lazily chatting in our long chairs behind +the bamboo chicks, the cries of "Harimau! Harimau!" and "Baboo" +came up to us from the servants' quarters. + +Aboo Din sprang over the railing of the veranda, and without stopping +even to touch the back of his hand to his forehead, cried,-- + +"Tuan Consul, tiger have eat chow dog and got Baboo!" + +Then he rushed into the dining room, snatched up my Winchester and +cartridge-belt, and handed them to me with a "Lekas (quick)! Come!" + +He sprang back off the veranda and ran to his quarters where the men +were arming themselves with ugly krises and heavy parangs. + +I had not much hope of finding the tiger, much less of rescuing Baboo, +dead or alive. The jungle loomed up like an impassable wall on all +three sides of the compound, so dense, compact, and interwoven, that +a bird could not fly through it. Still I knew that my men, if they +had the courage, could follow where the tiger led, and could cut a +path for me. + +Aboo Din unloosed a half-dozen pariah dogs that we kept for wild pig, +and led them to the spot where the tiger had last lain. In an instant +the entire pack sent up a doleful howl and slunk back to their kennels. + +Aboo Din lashed them mercilessly and drove them into the jungle, +where he followed on his hands and knees. I only waited to don my +green kaki suit and canvas shooting hat and despatch a man to the +neighboring kampong, or village, to ask the punghulo (chief) to send +me his shikaris, or hunters. Then I plunged into the jungle path +that my kebuns had cut with their keen parangs, or jungle-knives. Ten +feet within the confines of the forest the metallic glare of the sun +and the pitiless reflections of the China Sea were lost in a dim, +green twilight. Far ahead I could hear the half-hearted snarls of +the cowardly, deserting curs, and Aboo Din's angry voice rapidly +exhausting the curses of the Koran on their heads. + +My men, who were naked save for a cotton sarong wound around their +waists, slashed here a rubber-vine, there a thorny rattan, and again +a mass of creepers that were as tenacious as iron ropes, all the time +pressing forward at a rapid walk. Ofttimes the trail led from the +solid ground through a swamp where grew great sago palms, and out +of which a black, sluggish stream flowed toward the straits. Gray +iguanas and pendants of dove orchids hung from the limbs above, +and green and gold lizards scuttled up the trees at our approach. + +At the first plot of wet ground Aboo Din sent up a shout, and awaited +my coming. I found him on his hands and knees, gazing stupidly at +the prints in the moist earth. + +"Tuan," he shouted, "see Baboo's feet, one--two--three--more! Praise +be to Allah!" + +I dropped down among the lily-pads and pitcher-plants beside him. +There, sure enough, close by the catlike footmarks of the tiger, was +the perfect impression of one of Baboo's bare feet. Farther on was the +imprint of another, and then a third. Wonderful! The intervals between +the several footmarks were far enough apart for the stride of a man! + +"Apa?" (What does it mean?) I said. + +Aboo Din tore his hair and called upon Allah and the assembled Malays +to witness that he was the father of this Baboo, but that, in the +sight of Mohammed, he was innocent of this witchcraft. He had striven +from Hari Rahmadan to Hari Rahmanan to bring this four-year-old up in +the light of the Koran, but here he was striding through the jungle, +three feet and more at a step, holding to a tiger's tail! + +I shouted with laughter as the truth dawned upon me. It must be +so,--Baboo was alive. His footprints were before me. He was being +dragged through the jungle by a full-grown Malayan tiger! How else +explain his impossible strides, overlapping the beast's marks! + +Aboo Din turned his face toward Mecca, and his lips moved in prayer. + +"May Allah be kind to this tiger!" he mumbled. "He is in the hands +of a witch. We shall find him as harmless as an old cat. Baboo will +break out his teeth with a club of billion wood and bite off his +claws with his own teeth. Allah is merciful!" + +We pushed on for half an hour over a dry, foliage-cushioned strip +of ground that left no trace of the pursued. At the second wet spot +we dashed forward eagerly and scanned the trail for signs of Baboo, +but only the pads of the tiger marred the surface of the slime. + +Aboo Din squatted at the root of a huge mangrove and broke forth +into loud lamentations, while the last remaining cur took advantage +of his preoccupation to sneak back on the homeward trail. + +"Aboo," I commanded sarcastically, "pergie! (move on!) Baboo is a +man and a witch. He is tired of walking, and is riding on the back +of the tiger!" + +Aboo gazed into my face incredulously for a moment; then, picking up +his parang and tightening his sarong, strode on ahead without a word. + +At noon we came upon a sandy stretch of soil that contained +a few diseased cocoanut palms, fringed by a sluggish lagoon, +and a great banian tree whose trunk was hardly more than a mass +of interlaced roots. A troop of long-armed wah-wah monkeys were +scolding and whistling within its dense foliage with surprising +intensity. Occasionally one would drop from an outreaching limb to +one of the pendulous roots, and then, with a shrill whistle of fright, +spring back to the protection of his mates. + +A Malay silenced them by throwing a half-ripe cocoanut into the +midst of the tree, and we moved on to the shade of the sturdiest +palm. There we sat down to rest and eat some biscuits softened in +the milk of a cocoanut. + +"There is a boa in the roots of the banian, Aboo," I said, looking +longingly toward its deep shadow. + +He nodded his head, and drew from the pouch in the knot in his sarong +a few broken fragments of areca nut. These he wrapped in a lemon leaf +well smeared with lime, and tucked the entire mass into the corner +of his mouth. + +In a moment a brilliant red juice dyed his lips, and he closed his +eyes in happy contentment, oblivious, for the time, of the sand and +fallen trunks that seemed to dance in the parching rays of the sun, +oblivious, even, of the loss of his first-born. + +I was revolving in my mind whether there was any use in continuing +the chase, which I would have given up long before, had I not known +that a tiger who has eaten to repletion is both timid and lazy. This +one had certainly breakfasted on a dog or on some animal before +encountering Baboo. + +I had hoped that possibly the barking of the curs might have caused +him to drop the child, and make off where pursuit would be impossible; +but so far we had, after those footprints, found neither traces of +Baboo alive, nor the blood which should have been seen had the tiger +killed the child. + +Suddenly a long, pear-shaped mangrove-pod struck me full in the +breast. I sprang up in surprise, for I was under a cocoanut tree, +and there was no mangrove nearer than the lagoon. + +A Malay looked up sleepily, and pointed toward the wide-spreading +banian. + +"Monkey, Tuan!" + +My eyes followed the direction indicated, and could just distinguish a +grinning face among the interlacing roots at the base of the tree. So +I picked up the green, dartlike end of the pod, and took careful aim +at the brown face and milk-white teeth. + +Then it struck me as peculiar that a monkey, after all the evidence +of fright we had so lately witnessed, should seek a hiding-place that +must be within easy reach of its greatest enemy, the boa-constrictor. + +Aboo Din had aroused himself, and was looking intently in the same +direction. Before I could take a step toward the tree he had leaped +to his feet, and was bounding across the little space, shouting, +"Baboo! Baboo!" + +The small brown face instantly disappeared, and we were left staring +blankly at a dark opening into the heart of the woody maze. Then we +heard the small, well-known voice of Baboo:-- + +"Tabek (greeting), Tuan! Greeting, Aboo Din! Tuan Consul no whip, +Baboo come out." + +Aboo Din ran his long, naked arm into the opening in pursuit of his +first-born--the audacious boy who would make terms with his white +master! + +"Is it not enough before Allah that this son should cause me, a Hadji, +to curse daily, but now he must bewitch tigers and dictate terms to +the Tuan and to me, his father? He shall feel the strength of my wrist; +I will--O Allah!" + +Aboo snatched forth his arm with a howl of pain. One of his fingers +was bleeding profusely, and the marks of tiny teeth showed plainly +where Baboo had closed them on the offending hand. + +"Biak, Baboo, mari!" (Good, come forth!) I said. + +First the round, soft face of the small miscreant appeared; then +the head, and then the naked little body. Aboo Din grasped him in +his arms, regardless of his former threats, or of the blood that was +flowing from his wounds. Then, amid caresses and promises to Allah +to kill fire-fighting cocks, the father hugged and kissed Baboo until +he cried out with pain. + +After each Malay had taken the little fellow in his arms, I turned +to Baboo and said, while I tried to be severe,-- + +"Baboo, where is tiger?" + +"Sudah mati (dead), Tuan," he answered with dignity. "Tiger over there, +Tuan. Sladang kill. I hid here and wait for Aboo Din!" + +He touched his forehead with the back of his brown palm. There was +nothing, either in the little fellow's bearing or words, that betrayed +fear or bravado. It was only one mishap more or less to him. + +We followed Baboo's lead to the edge of the jungle, and there, +stretched out in the hot sand, lay the great, tawny beast, stamped +and pawed until he was almost unrecognizable. + +All about him were the hoof-marks of the great sladang, the fiercest +and wildest animal of the peninsula--the Malayan bull that will charge +a tiger, a black lion, a boa, and even a crocodile, on sight. Hunters +will go miles to avoid one of them, and a herd of elephants will go +trumpeting away in fear at their approach. + +"Kuching besar (big cat) eat Baboo's chow dog, then sleep in +lallang grass,"--this was the child's story. "Baboo find, and say, +'Bagus kuching (pretty kitty), see Baboo's doll?' Kuching no like +Baboo's doll mem consul give. Kuching run away. Baboo catch tail, +run too. Kuching go long ways. Baboo 'fraid Aboo Din whip and tell +kuching must go back. Kuching pick Baboo up in mouth when Baboo let go. + +"Kuching hurt Baboo. Baboo stick fingers in kuching's eye. Kuching +no more hurt Baboo. Kuching stop under banian tree and sleep. Big +sladang come, fight kuching. Baboo sorry for good kuching. Baboo hid +from sladang,--Aboo Din no whip Baboo?" + +His voice dropped to a pathetic little quaver, and he put up his +hands with an appealing gesture; but his brown legs were drawn back +ready to flee should Aboo Din make one hostile move. + +"Baboo," I said, "you are a hero!" + +Baboo opened his little black eyes, but did not dispute me. + +"You shall go to Mecca when you grow up, and become a Hadji, and when +you come back the high kadi shall take you in the mosque and make +a kateeb of you," said I. "Now put your forehead to the ground and +thank the good Allah that the kuching had eaten dog before he got you." + +Baboo did as he was told, but I think that in his heart he was more +grateful that for once he had evaded a whipping than for his remarkable +escape. A little later the punghulo came up with a half-dozen shikaris, +or hunters, and a pack of hunting dogs. The men skinned the mutilated +carcass of the only "good tiger" I met during my three years' hunting +in the jungles of this strange old peninsula. + + + + + +BABOO'S PIRATES + +An Adventure in the Pahang River + + +There was a scuffle in the outer office, and a thin, piping voice +was calling down all the curses of the Koran on the heads of my great +top-heavy Hindu guards. + +"Sons of dogs," I heard in the most withering contempt, "I will see +the Tuan Consul. Know he is my father." + +A tall Sikh, with his great red turban awry and his brown kaki uniform +torn and soiled, pushed through the bamboo chicks and into my presence. + +He was dragging a small bit of naked humanity by the folds of its +faded cotton sarong. + +The powerful soldier was hot and flushed, and a little stream of +blood trickling from his finger tips showed where they had come in +contact with his captive's teeth. It was as though an elephant had +been worried by a pariah cur. + +"Your Excellency," he said, salaaming and gasping for breath. + +"It is Baboo, the Harimau-Anak!" + +Baboo wrenched from the guard's grasp and glided up to my desk. The +back of his open palm went to his forehead, and his big brown eyes +looked up appealingly into mine. + +"What is it, Tiger-Child?" I asked, bestowing on him the title the +Malays of Kampong Glam had given him as a perpetual reminder of his +famous adventure. + +Dimples came into either tear-stained cheek. He smoothed out the rents +in his small sarong, and without deigning to notice his late captor, +said in a soft sing-song voice:-- + +"Tuan Consul, Baboo want to go with the Heaven-Born to Pahang. +Baboo six years old,--can fight pirates like Aboo Din, the father. May +Mohammed make Tuan as odorous as musk!" + +"You are a boaster before Allah, Baboo," I said, smiling. + +Baboo dropped his head in perfectly simulated contrition. + +"I have thought much, Tuan." + +News had come to me that an American merchant ship had been wrecked +near the mouth of the Pahang River, and that the Malays, who were at +the time in revolt against the English Resident, had taken possession +of its cargo of petroleum and made prisoners of the crew. + +I had asked the colonial governor for a guard of five Sikhs and a +launch, that I might steam up the coast and investigate the alleged +outrage before appealing officially to the British government. + +Of course Baboo went, much to the disgust of Aboo Din, the syce. + +I never was able to refuse the little fellow anything, and I knew if +I left him behind he would be revenged by running away. + +I had vowed again and again that Baboo should stay lost the next +time he indulged in his periodical vanishing act, but each time when +night came and Aboo Din, the syce, and Fatima, the mother, crept +pathetically along the veranda to where I was smoking and steeling +my heart against the little rascal, I would snatch up my cork helmet +and spring into my cart, which Aboo Din had kept waiting inside the +stables for the moment when I should relent. + +Since Baboo had become a hero and earned the appellation of the +Harimau-Anak, his vanity directed his footsteps toward Kampong Glam, +the Malay quarter of Singapore. Here he was generally to be found, +seated on a richly hued Indian rug, with his feet drawn up under him, +amid a circle of admiring shopkeepers, syces, kebuns, and fishermen, +narrating for the hundredth time how he had been caught at Changhi +by a tiger, carried through the jungle on its back until he came to +a great banian tree, into which he had crawled while the tiger slept, +how a sladang (wild bull) came out of the lagoon and killed the tiger, +and how Tuan Consul and Aboo Din, the father, had found him and kissed +him many times. + +Often he enlarged on the well-known story and repeated long +conversations that he had carried on with the tiger while they were +journeying through the jungle. + +A brass lamp hung above his head in which the cocoanut oil sputtered +and burned and cast a fitful half-light about the box-like stall. + +Only the eager faces of the listeners stood out clear and distinct +against the shadowy background of tapestries from Madras and Bokhara, +soft rich rugs from Afghanistan and Persia, curiously wrought finger +bowls of brass and copper from Delhi and Siam, and piles of cunningly +painted sarongs from Java. + +Close against a naked fisherman sat the owner of the bazaar in tall, +conical silk-plaited hat and flowing robes, ministering to the wants +of the little actor, as the soft, monotonous voice paused for a brief +instant for the tiny cups of black coffee. + +I never had the heart to interrupt him in the midst of one of these +dramatic recitals, but would stand respectfully without the circle +of light until he had finished the last sentence. + +He was not frightened when I thrust the squatting natives right +and left, and he did not forget to arise and touch the back of his +open palm to his forehead, with a calm and reverent, "Tabek, Tuan" +(Greeting, my lord). + + + +So Baboo went with us to fight pirates. + +He unrolled his mat out on the bow where every dash of warm salt +water wet his brown skin, and where he could watch the flying fish +dash across our way. + +He was very quiet during the two days of the trip, as though he were +fully conscious of the heavy responsibility that rested upon his young +shoulders. I had called him a boaster and it had cut him to the quick. + +We found the wreck of the Bunker Hill on a sunken coral reef near the +mouth of the Pahang River, but every vestige of her cargo and stores +was gone, even to the glass in her cabin windows and the brasses on +her rails. + +We worked in along the shore and kept a lookout for camps or signals, +but found none. + +I decided to go up the river as far as possible in the launch in +hope of coming across some trace of the missing crew, although I +was satisfied that they had been captured by the noted rebel chief, +the Orang Kayah of Semantan, or by his more famous lieutenant, the +crafty Panglima Muda of Jempol, and were being held for ransom. + +It was late in the afternoon when we entered the mouth of the Sungi +Pahang. + +Aboo Din advised a delay until the next morning. + +"The Orang Kayah's Malays are pirates, Tuan," he said, with a sinister +shrug of his bare shoulders, "he has many men and swift praus; the +Dutch, at Rio, have sold them guns, and they have their krises,--they +are cowards in the day." + +I smiled at the syce's fears. + +I knew that the days of piracy in the Straits of Malacca, save for +an occasional outbreak of high-sea petty larceny on a Chinese lumber +junk or a native trader's tonkang, were past, and I did not believe +that the rebels would have the hardihood to attack, day or night, +a boat, however unprotected, bearing the American flag. + +For an hour or more we ran along between the mangrove-bordered shores +against a swiftly flowing, muddy current. + +The great tangled roots of these trees stood up out of the water like +a fretwork of lace, and the interwoven branches above our heads shut +out the glassy glare of the sun. We pushed on until the dim twilight +faded out, and only a phosphorescent glow on the water remained to +reveal the snags that marked our course. + +The launch was anchored for the night close under the bank, where +the maze of mangroves was beginning to give place to the solid ground +and the jungle. + +Myriads of fireflies settled down on us and hung from the low limbs +of the overhanging trees, relieving the hot, murky darkness with +their thousands of throbbing lamps. + +From time to time a crocodile splashed in the water as he slid heavily +down the clayey bank at the bow. + +In the trees and rubber-vines all about us a colony of long-armed +wah-wah monkeys whistled and chattered, and farther away the sharp, +rasping note of a cicada kept up a continuous protest at our invasion. + +At intervals the long, quivering yell of a tiger frightened the +garrulous monkeys into silence, and made us peer apprehensively toward +the impenetrable blackness of the jungle. + +Aboo Din came to me as I was arranging my mosquito curtains for +the night. He was casting quick, timid glances over his shoulder as +he talked. + +"Tuan, I no like this place. Too close bank. Ten boat-lengths down +stream better. Baboo swear by Allah he see faces behind trees,--once, +twice. Baboo good eyes." + +I shook off the uncanny feeling that the place was beginning to cast +over me, and turned fiercely on the faithful Aboo Din. + +He slunk away with a low salaam, muttering something about the +Heaven-Born being all wise, and later I saw him in deep converse with +his first-born under a palm-thatched cadjang on the bow. + +I was half inclined to take Aboo Din's advice and drop down the +stream. Then it occurred to me that I might better face an imaginary +foe than the whirlpools and sunken snags of the Pahang. + +I posted sentinels fore and aft and lay down and closed my eyes to +the legion of fireflies that made the night luminous, and my ears +to the low, musical chant that arose fitfully from among my Malay +servants on the stern. + +The Sikhs were big, massive fellows, fully six feet tall, with towering +red turbans that accentuated their height fully a foot. + +They were regular artillery-men from Fort Canning, and had seen +service all over India. + +They had not been in Singapore long enough to become acquainted +with the Malay language or character, but they knew their duty, +and I trusted to their military training rather than to my Malay's +superior knowledge for our safety during the night. + +I found out later that the cunning in Baboo's small brown finger was +worth all the precision and drill in the Sikh sergeant's great body. + +I fell asleep at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of +the Koran, and the drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among +the varnished leaves above. The night was intensely hot; not a breath +of air could stir within our living-cabin, and the cooling moisture +which always comes with nightfall on the equator was lapped up by the +thirsty fronds above our heads, so that I had not slept many hours +before I awoke dripping with perspiration, and faint. + +There was an impression in my mind that I had been awakened by the +falling of glass. + +The Sikh saluted silently as I stepped out on the deck. + +It lacked some hours of daylight, and there was nothing to do but go +back to my bed, vowing never again to camp for the night along the +steaming shores of a jungle-covered stream. + +I slept but indifferently; I missed the cooling swish of the punkah, +and all through my dreams the crackle and breaking of glass seemed +to mingle with the insistent buzz of the tiger-gnats. + +Baboo's diminutive form kept flitting between me and the fireflies. + +The first half-lights of morning were struggling down through the +green canopy above when I was brought to my feet by the discharge of +a Winchester and a long, shrill cry of fright and pain. + +Before I could disentangle myself from the meshes of the mosquito net +I could see dimly a dozen naked forms drop lightly on to the deck +from the obscurity of the bank, followed in each case by a long, +piercing scream of pain. + +I snatched up my revolver and rushed out on to the deck in my bare +feet. + +Some one grasped me by the shoulder and shouted:-- + +"Jaga biak, biak, Tuan (be careful, Tuan), pirates!" + +I recognized Aboo Din's voice, and I checked myself just as my feet +came in contact with a broken beer bottle. + +The entire surface of the little deck was strewn with glittering +star-shaped points that corresponded with the fragments before me. + +I had not a moment to investigate, however, for in the gloom, where +the bow of the launch touched the foliage-meshed bank, a scene of +wild confusion was taking place. + +Shadowy forms were leaping, one after another, from the branches above +on to the deck. I slowly cocked my revolver, doubting my senses, +for each time one of the invaders reached the deck he sprang into +the air with the long, thrilling cry of pain that had awakened me, +and with another bound was on the bulwarks and over the side of the +launch, clinging to the railing. + +With each cry, Baboo's mocking voice came out, shrill and exultant, +from behind a pile of life-preservers. "O Allah, judge the dogs. They +would kris the great Tuan as he slept--the pariahs!--but they forgot +so mean a thing as Baboo!" + +The smell of warm blood filled the air, and a low snarl among the +rubber-vines revealed the presence of a tiger. + +I felt Aboo Din's hand tremble on my shoulder. + +The five Sikhs were drawn up in battle array before the cabin door, +waiting for the word of command. I glanced at them and hesitated. + +"Tid 'apa, Tuan" (never mind), Aboo Din whispered with a proud ring +in his voice. + +"Baboo blow Orang Kayah's men away with the breath of his mouth." + +As he spoke the branches above the bow were thrust aside and a dark +form hung for an instant as though in doubt, then shot straight down +upon the corrugated surface of the deck. + +As before, a shriek of agony heralded the descent, followed by +Baboo's laugh, then the dim shape sprang wildly upon the bulwark, +lost its hold, and went over with a great splash among the labyrinth +of snakelike mangrove roots. + +There was the rushing of many heavy forms through the red mud, +a snapping of great jaws, and there was no mistaking the almost +mortal cry that arose from out the darkness. I had often heard it +when paddling softly up one of the wild Malayan rivers. + +It was the death cry of a wah-wah monkey facing the cruel jaws of +a crocodile. + +I plunged my fingers into my ears to smother the sound. I understood +it all now. Baboo's pirates, the dreaded Orang Kayah's rebels, were the +troop of monkeys we had heard the night before in the tambusa trees. + +"Baboo," I shouted, "come here! What does this all mean?" + +The Tiger-Child glided from behind the protecting pile, and came +close up to my legs. + +"Tuan," he whimpered, "Baboo see many faces behind trees. Baboo 'fraid +for Tuan,--Tuan great and good,--save Baboo from tiger,--Baboo break +up all glass bottles--old bottles--Tuan no want old bottle--Baboo +and Aboo Din, the father, put them on deck so when Orang Kayah's men +come out of jungle and drop from trees on deck they cut their feet +on glass. Baboo is through talking,--Tuan no whip Baboo!" + +There was the pathetic little quaver in his voice that I knew so well. + +"But they were monkeys, Baboo, not pirates." + +Baboo shrugged his brown shoulders and kept his eyes on my feet. + +"Allah is good!" he muttered. + +Allah was good; they might have been pirates. + +The snarl of the tiger was growing more insistent and near. I gave +the order, and the boat backed out into mid-stream. + +As the sun was reducing the gloom of the sylvan tunnel to a translucent +twilight, we floated down the swift current toward the ocean. + +I had given up all hope of finding the shipwrecked men, and decided +to ask the government to send a gunboat to demand their release. + +As the bow of the launch passed the wreck of the Bunker Hill and +responded to the long even swell of the Pacific, Baboo beckoned +sheepishly to Aboo Din, and together they swept all trace of his +adventure into the green waters. + +Among the souvenirs of my sojourn in Golden Chersonese is a bit +of amber-colored glass bearing the world-renowned name of a London +brewer. There is a dark stain on one side of it that came from the +hairy foot of one of Baboo's "pirates." + + + + + +HOW WE PLAYED ROBINSON CRUSOE + +In the Straits of Malacca + + +Two hours' steam south from Singapore, out into the famous Straits of +Malacca, or one day's steam north from the equator, stands Raffles's +Lighthouse. Sir Stamford Raffles, the man from whom it took its name, +rests in Westminster Abbey, and a heroic-sized bronze statue of him +graces the centre of the beautiful ocean esplanade of Singapore, +the city he founded. + +It was on the rocky island on which stands this light, that we--the +mistress and I--played Robinson Crusoe, or, to be nearer the truth, +Swiss Family Robinson. + +It was hard to imagine, I confess, that the beautiful steam launch +that brought us was a wreck; that our half-dozen Chinese servants were +members of the family; that the ton of impedimenta was the flotsam of +the sea; that the Eurasian keeper and his attendants were cannibals; +but we closed our eyes to all disturbing elements, and only remembered +that we were alone on a sunlit rock in the midst of a sunlit sea, +and that the dreams of our childhood were, to some extent, realized. + +What live American boy has not had the desire, possibly but +half-admitted, to some day be like his hero, dear old Crusoe, on a +tropical island, monarch of all, hampered by no dictates of society +or fashion? I admit my desire, and, further, that it did not leave +me as I grew older. + +We had just time to inspect our little island home before the sun +went down, far out in the Indian Ocean. + +Originally the island had been but a barren, uneven rock, the +resting-place for gulls; but now its summit has been made flat by a +coating of concrete. There is just enough earth between the concrete +and the rocky edges of the island to support a circle of cocoanut +trees, a great almond tree, and a queer-looking banian tree, whose +wide-spreading arms extend over nearly half the little plaza. Below +the lighthouse, and set back like caves into the side of the island, +are the kitchen and the servants' quarters, a covered passageway +connecting them with the rotunda of the tower, in which we have set +our dining table. + +Ah Ming, our "China boy," seemed to be inveterate in his determination +to spoil our Swiss Family Robinson illusion. We were hardly settled +before he came to us. + +"Mem" (mistress), "no have got ice-e-blox. Ice-e all glow away." + +"Very well, Ming. Dig a hole in the ground, and put the ice in it." + +"How can dig? Glound all same, hard like ice-e." + +"Well, let the ice melt," I replied. "Robinson Crusoe had no ice." + +In a half-hour Jim, the cook, came up to speak to the "Mem." He +lowered his cue, brushed the creases out of his spotless shirt, +drew his face down, and commenced:-- + +"Mem, no have got chocolate, how can make puddlin'?" + +I laughed outright. Jim looked hurt. + +"Jim, did you ever hear of one Crusoe?" + +"No, Tuan!" (Lord.) + +"Well, he was a Tuan who lived for thirty years without once eating +chocolate 'puddlin'.' We'll not eat any for ten days. Sabe?" + +Jim retired, mortified and astonished. + +Inside of another half-hour, the Tukang Ayer, or water-carrier, arrived +on the scene. He was simply dressed in a pair of knee-breeches. He +complained of a lack of silver polish, and was told to pound up a +stone for the knives, and let the silver alone. + +We are really in the heart of a small archipelago. All about us are +verdure-covered islands. They are now the homes of native fishermen, +but a century ago they were hiding-places for the fierce Malayan +pirates whose sanguinary deeds made the peninsula a byword in the +mouths of Europeans. + +A rocky beach extends about the island proper, contracting and +expanding as the tide rises and falls. On this beach a hundred and one +varieties of shells glisten in the salt water, exposing their delicate +shades of coloring to the rays of the sun. Coral formations of endless +design and shape come to view through the limpid spectrum, forming +a perfect submarine garden of wondrous beauty. Through the shrubs, +branches, ferns, and sponges of coral, the brilliantly colored fish +of the Southern seas sport like goldfish in some immense aquarium. + +We draw out our chairs within the protection of the almond tree, and +watch the sun sink slowly to a level with the masts of a bark that is +bound for Java and the Bornean coasts. The black, dead lava of our +island becomes molten for the time, and the flakes of salt left on +the coral reef by the outgoing tide are filled with suggestions of +the gold of the days of '49. A faint breeze rustles among the long, +fan-like leaves of the palm, and brings out the rich yellow tints +with their background of green. A clear, sweet aroma comes from out +the almond tree. The red sun and the white sheets of the bark sail +away together for the Spice Islands of the South Pacific. + +We sleep in a room in the heart of the lighthouse. The stairway +leading to it is so steep that we find it necessary to hold on to a +knotted rope as we ascend. Hundreds of little birds, no larger than +sparrows, dash by the windows, flying into the face of the gale that +rages during the night, keeping up all the time a sharp, high note +that sounds like wind blowing on telegraph wires. + +Every morning, at six o'clock, Ah Ming clambers up the perpendicular +stairway, with tea and toast. We swallow it hurriedly, wrap a sarong +about us, and take a dip in the sea, the while keeping our eyes open +for sharks. Often, after a bath, while stretched out in a long chair, +we see the black fins of a man-eater cruising just outside the reef. I +do not know that I ever hit one, but I have used a good deal of lead +firing at them. + +One morning we started on an exploring expedition, in the keeper's +jolly-boat. It was only a short distance to the first island, a small +rocky one, with a bit of sandy beach, along which were scattered +the charred embers of past fires. From under our feet darted the +grotesque little robber-crabs, with their stolen shell houses on their +backs. A great white jellyfish, looking like a big tapioca pudding, +had been washed up with the tide out of the reach of the sea, and a +small colony of ants was feasting on it. We did not try to explore +the interior of the islet. We named it Fir Island from its crown of +fir-like casuarina trees, which sent out on every breeze a balsamic +odor that was charged with far-away New England recollections. + +The next island was a large one. The keeper said it was called Pulo +Seneng, or Island of Leisure, and held a little kampong, or village of +Malays, under an old punghulo, or chief, named Wahpering. We found, +on nearing the verdure-covered island, that it looked much larger +than it really was. The woods grew out into the sea for a quarter +of a mile. We entered the wood by a narrow walled inlet, and found +ourselves for the first time in a mangrove swamp. The trees all seemed +to be growing on stilts. A perfect labyrinth of roots stood up out of +the water, like a rough scaffold, on which rested the tree trunks, +high and dry above the flood. From the limbs of the trees hung the +seed pods, two feet in length, sharp-pointed at the lower end, while on +the upper end, next to the tree, was a russet pear-shaped growth. They +are so nicely balanced that when in their maturity they drop from the +branches, they fall upright in the mud, literally planting themselves. + +The punghulo's house, or bungalow, stood at the head of the inlet. The +old man--he must have been sixty--donned his best clothes, relieved his +mouth of a great red quid of betel, and came out to welcome us. He +gracefully touched his forehead with the back of his open palm, +and mumbled the Malay greeting:-- + +"Tabek, Tuan?" (How are you, my lord?) + +When the keeper gave him our cards, and announced us in florid +language, the genial old fellow touched his forehead again, and in +his best Bugis Malay begged the great Rajah and Ranee to enter his +humble home. + +The only way of entering a Malay home is by a rickety ladder six feet +high, and through a four-foot opening. I am afraid that the great +"Rajah and Ranee" lost some of their lately acquired dignity in +accepting the invitation. + +Wahpering's bungalow, other than being larger and roomier than +the ordinary bungalow, was exactly like all others in style and +architecture. + +It was built close to the water's edge, on palm posts six feet above +the ground. This was for protection from the tiger, from thieves, from +the water, and for sanitary reasons. Within the house we could just +stand upright. The floor was of split bamboo, and was elastic to the +foot, causing a sensation which at first made us step carefully. The +open places left by the crossing of the bamboo slats were a great +convenience to the punghulo's wives, as they could sweep all the refuse +of the house through them; they might also be a great accommodation to +the punghulo's enemies, if he had any, for they could easily ascertain +the exact mat on which he slept, and stab him with their keen krises +from beneath. + +In one corner of the room was the hand-loom on which the punghulo's +old wife was weaving the universal article of dress, the sarong. + +The weaving of a sarong represents the labor of twenty days, and +when we gave the dried-up old worker two dollars and a half for one, +her syrah-stained gums broke forth from between her bright-red lips +in a ghastly grin of pleasure. + +There must have been the representatives of at least four generations +under the punghulo's hospitable roof. Men and women, alike, were +dressed in the skirt-like sarong which fell from the waist down; above +that some of the older women wore another garment called a kabaya. The +married women were easily distinguishable by their swollen gums and +filed teeth. + +The roof and sides of the house were of attap. This is made from +the long, arrow-like leaves of the nipah palm. Unlike its brother +palms--the cocoa, the sago, the gamooty, and the areca--the nipah is +short, and more like a giant cactus in growth. Its leaves are stripped +off by the natives, then bent over a bamboo rod and sewed together with +fibres of the same palm. When dry they become glazed and waterproof. + +The tall, slender areca palm, which stands about every kampong, +supplies the natives with their great luxury--an acorn, known as the +betel-nut, which, when crushed and mixed with lime leaves, takes the +place of our chewing tobacco. In fact, the bright-red juice seen oozing +from the corners of a Malay's mouth is as much a part of himself as +is his sarong or kris. Betel-nut chewing holds its own against the +opium of the Chinese and the tobacco of the European. + +As soon as we shook hands ceremoniously with the punghulo's oldest +wife, and tabeked to the rest of his big family, the old man scrambled +down the ladder, and sent a boy up a cocoanut tree for some fresh +nuts. In a moment half a dozen of the great, oval, green nuts came +pounding down into the sand. Another little fellow snatched them up, +and with a sharp parang, or hatchet-like knife, cut away the soft shuck +until the cocoanut took the form of a pyramid, at the apex of which +he bored a hole, and a stream of delicious, cool milk gurgled out. We +needed no second invitation to apply our lips to the hole. The meat +inside was so soft that we could eat it with a spoon. The cocoanut +of commerce contains hardly a suggestion of the tender, fleshy pulp +of a freshly picked nut. + +We left the punghulo's house with the old chief in the bow of our +boat--he insisted upon seeing that we were properly announced to his +subjects--and proceeded along the coast for half a mile, and then up +a swampy lagoon to its head. + +The tall tops of the palms wrapped everything in a cool, green +twilight. The waters of the lagoon were filled with little bronze +forms, swimming and sporting about in its tepid depths regardless of +the cruel eyes that gleamed at them from great log-like forms among +the mangrove roots. + +Dozens of naked children fled up the rickety ladders of their homes +as we approached. Ring-doves flew through the trees, and tame monkeys +chattered at us from every corner. The men came out to meet us, and +did the hospitalities of their village; and when we left, our boat +was loaded down with presents of fish and fruit. + +Almost every day after that did we visit the kampong, and were always +welcomed in the same cordial manner. + +Wahpering was tireless in his attentions. He kept his Sampan Besar, +or big boat, with its crew at our disposal day after day. + +One day I showed him the American flag. He gazed at it thoughtfully and +said, "Biak!" (Good.) "How big your country?" I tried to explain. He +listened for a moment. "Big as Negri Blanda?" (Holland.) I laughed. "A +thousand times larger!" The old fellow shook his head sadly, and +looked at me reproachfully. + +"Tidah! Tidah!" (No, no.) "Rajah, Orang Blanda (Dutchman) show me +chart of the world. Holland all red. Take almost all the world. Rest +of country small, small. All in one little corner. How can Rajah say +his country big?" + +There was no denying the old man's knowledge; I, too, had seen one +of these Dutch maps of the world, which are circulated in Java to +make the natives think that Holland is the greatest nation on earth. + +One day glided into another with surprising rapidity. We could swim, +explore, or lie out in our long chairs and read and listlessly +dream. All about our little island the silver sheen of the sea +was checkered with sails. These strange native craft held for me +a lasting fascination. I gazed out at them as they glided by and +saw in them some of the rose-colored visions of my youth. Piracy, +Indian Rajahs, and spice islands seemed to live in their queer red +sails and palm-matting roofs. At night a soft, warm breeze blew from +off shore and lulled us to sleep ere we were aware. + +One morning the old chief made us a visit before we were up. He +announced his approach by a salute from a muzzle-loading musket. I +returned it by a discharge from my revolver. He had come over +with the morning tide to ask us to spend the day, as his guests, +wild-pig hunting. Of course we accepted with alacrity. I am not +going to tell you how we found all the able-bodied men and dogs on +the island awaiting us, how they beat the jungle with frantic yells +and shouts while we waited on the opposite side, or even how many +pigs we shot. It would all take too long. + +We went fishing every day. The many-colored and many-shaped fish we +caught were a constant wonderment to us. One was bottle-green, with +sky-blue fins and tail, and striped with lines of gold. Its skin +was stiff and firm as patent leather. Another was pale blue, with +a bright-red proboscis two inches long. We caught cuttle-fish with +great lustrous eyes, long jelly feelers, and a plentiful supply of +black fluid; squibs, prawns, mullets, crabs, and devil-fish. These +last are considered great delicacies by the natives. We had one +fried. Its meat was perfectly white, and tasted like a tallow candle. + +The day on which we were to leave, Wahpering brought us some fruit and +fish and a pair of ring-doves. Motioning me to one side, he whispered, +the while looking shyly at the mistress, "Ranee very beautiful! How +much you pay?" I was staggered for the moment, and made him repeat his +question. This time I could not mistake him. "How much you pay for +wife?" He gave his thumb a jerk in the direction of the mistress. I +saw that he was really serious, so I collected my senses, and with +a practical, businesslike air answered, "Two hundred dollars." The +old fellow sighed. + +"The great Rajah very rich! I pay fifty for best wife." + +I have not tried to tell you all we did on our tropical island playing +Robinson Crusoe. I have only tried to convey some little impression +of a happy ten days that will ever be remembered as one more of +those glorious, Oriental chapters in our lives which are filled with +the gorgeous colors of crimson and gold, the delicate perfumes of +spice-laden breezes, and with imperishable visions of a strange, +old-world life. + +They are chapters that we can read over and over again with an ever +increasing interest as the years roll by. + + + + + +THE SARONG + +The Malay's Chief Garment + + +No one knows who invented the sarong. When the great Sir Francis +Drake skirted the beautiful jungle-bound shores of that strange Asian +peninsula which seems forever to be pointing a wondering finger into +the very heart of the greatest archipelago in the world, he found +its inhabitants wearing the sarong. After a lapse of three centuries +they still wear it,--neither Hindu invasion, Mohammedan conversion, +Chinese immigration, nor European conquest has ever taken from them +their national dress. Civilization has introduced many articles of +clothing; but no matter how many of these are adopted, the Malay, +from his Highness the Sultan of Johore, to the poorest fisherman of +a squalid kampong on the muddy banks of a mangrove-hidden stream, +religiously wears the sarong. + +It is only an oblong cloth, this fashion-surviving garb, from two +to four feet in width and some two yards long; sewn together at the +ends. It looks like a gingham bag with the bottom out. The wearer +steps into it, and with two or three ingenious twists tightens it +round the waist, thus forming a skirt and, at the same time, a belt +in which he carries the kris, or snake-like dagger, the inevitable +pouch of areca nut for chewing, and the few copper cents that he dares +not trust in his unlocked hut. The man's skirt falls to his knees, +and among the poor class forms his only article of dress, while the +woman's reaches to her ankles and is worn in connection with another +sarong that is thrown over her head as a veil, so that when she is +abroad and meets one of the opposite sex she can, Moslem-like, draw +it about her face in the form of a long, narrow slit, showing only +her coal-black eyes and thinly pencilled eyebrows. + +In style or design the sarong never changes. Like the tartan of the +Highlanders, which it greatly resembles, it is invariably a check +of gay colors. They are all woven of silk or cotton, or of silk and +cotton mixed, by the native women, and no attap-thatched home is +complete without its hand-loom. + +One day we crawled up the narrow, rickety ladder that led into the +two by four opening of old Wahpering's palm-shaded home. The little +punghulo or chief, touched his forehead with the back of his open +palm as we advanced cautiously over the open bamboo floor toward his +old wife, who was seated in one corner by a low, horizontal window, +weaving a sarong on a hand-loom. She looked up pleasantly with a soft +"Tabek" (Greeting), and went on throwing her shuttle deftly through the +brilliantly colored threads. The sharp bang of the dark, kamooning-wood +bar drove the thread in place and left room for another. Back and +forth flew the shuttle, and thread after thread was added to the +fabric, yet no perceptible addition seemed to be made. + +"How long does it take to finish it?" I asked in Malay. + +"Twenty days," she answered, with a broad smile, showing her black, +filed teeth and syrah-stained lips. + +The red and brown sarong which she wore twisted tightly up under her +armpits had cost her almost a month's work; the green and yellow one +her chief wore about his waist, a month more; the ones she used as +screens to divide the interior into rooms, and those of the bevy +of sons and daughters of all ages that crowded about us each cost +a month's more; and yet the labor and material combined in each +represented less than two dollars of our money at the Bazaar in +Singapore. + +I had not the heart to take the one that she offered the mistress, +but insisted on giving in exchange a pearl-handled penknife, which +the chief took, with many a touch of his forehead, "as a remembrance +of the condescension of the Orang American Rajah." + +Wahpering's wife was not dressed to receive us, for we had come swiftly +up the dim lagoon, over which her home was built, and had landed +on the sandy beach unannounced. Had she known that we were coming, +she would have been dressed as became the wife of the Punghulo of +Pulo Seneng (Island of Leisure). The long, black hair would have been +washed beautifully clean with the juice of limes, and twisted up as a +crown on the top of her head. In it would have been stuck pins of the +deep-red gold from Mt. Ophir, and sprays of jasmine and chumpaka. Under +her silken sarong would have been an inner garment of white cotton, +about her waist a zone of beaded cloth held in front by an oval plate, +and over all would have been thrown a long, loose dressing-gown, called +the kabaya, falling to her knees and fastened down the front to the +silver girdle with golden brooches. Her toes would have been covered +with sandals cunningly embroidered in colored beads and gold tinsel. + +Wahpering, too, might have added to his sarong a thin vest, buttoned +close up to the neck, a light dimity baju, or jacket, and a pair of +loose silk drawers. They made no apology for their appearance, but +did the honors of the house with a native grace, regaling us with +the cool, fresh milk of the cocoanut, and the delicious globes of +the mangosteens. + +The glare of the noonday sun, here on the equator, is inconceivable. It +beats down in bald, irregular waves of heat that seem to stifle +every living being and to burn the foliage to a cinder. Even the +sharp, insistent whir of the cicada ceases when the thermometer on +the sunny side of our palm-thatched bungalow reaches 155 deg.. If I am +forced to go outside, I don my cork helmet, and hold a paper umbrella +above it. Even then, after I have gone a half-hour, I feel dizzy and +sick. I pass native after native, whose only head covering, if they +have any at all save their short-cut black hair, is a handkerchief, +stiffened, and tied with a peculiar twist on the head, or a rimless +cap with possibly a text of the Koran embroidered on its front. It is +only when they are on the sea from early morning to sunset, that they +think it worth while to protect their heads with an umbrella-shaped, +cane-worked head frame like those worn by the natives of Siam and +China. The women I meet simply draw their sarongs more closely about +their heads as the sun ascends higher and higher into the heavens, and +go clattering off down the road in their wooden pattens, unconscious +of my envy or wonderment. + +The sarong is more to the Malay than is the kilt to the Scotchman. It +is his dress by day and his covering at night. He uses it as a sail +when far out from land in his cockle-shell boat, or as a bag in which +to carry his provisions when following an elephant path through the +dense jungle. + +The checks, in its design, although indistinguishable to the European, +differ according to his tribe or clan, and serve him as a means of +identification wherever he may be on the peninsula. + +The sarong and kris are distinctly and solely Malayan; they are shared +with no other country; they are to be placed side by side with the +green turban of the Moslem pilgrim and the cimeter of the Prophet. + +A history of one, like the history of the other, embraces all that +is tragical or romantic in Malayan story. + + + + + +THE KRIS + +And how the Malays use it + + +In an old dog-eared copy of Monteith's Geography, I remember a +picture of a half-dozen pirate prahus attacking a merchantman off a +jungle-bordered shore. A blazing sun hung high in the heavens above the +fated ship, and, to my youthful imagination, seemed to beat down on the +tropical scene with a fierce, remorseless intensity. The wedge-shaped +tops of some palm-thatched and palm-shaded huts could just be seen, +set well back from the shore. + +I used to think that if I were a boy on that ship, I would slip quietly +overboard, swim ashore, and while the pirates were busy fighting, +I would set fire to their homes and so deliver the ship from their +clutches. Little did I know then of the acres of bewildering mangrove +swamps filled with the treacherous crocodiles that lie between the +low-water line and the firm ground of the coast. + +But always the most striking thing in the little woodcut to me were +the curious, snake-like knives that the naked natives held in their +hands. I had never seen anything like them before. I went to the +encyclopaedia and found that the name of the knife was spelled kris +and pronounced creese. + +The day-dreams which seemed impossible in the days of Monteith's +Geography have since been realized. I am living, perhaps, within +sight of the very place where the scene of the picture was laid; +for it was supposed to be illustrative of the Malay Peninsula; +and, as I write, one of those snake-like krises lies on the table +before me. It is a handsomer kris than those used by the actors in +that much-studied picture of my youth. The sheath and handle are of +solid gold--a rich yellow gold, mined at the foot of Mount Ophir, +the very same mountain so famous in Bible history, from which King +Solomon brought "gold, peacocks' feathers, and monkeys." The wavy, +flame-like blade is veined with gold, and its dull silvery surface is +damascened with as much care as was ever taken with the old swords +of Damascus. It is only an inch in width and a foot in length and +does not look half as dangerous as a Turkish cimeter; yet it has a +history that would put that of the tomahawk or the scalping-knife +to shame. Many a fat Chinaman, trading between the Java islands and +Amoy, has felt its keen edge at his throat and seen his rich cargo +of spices and bird's-nests rifled, his beloved Joss thrown overboard, +and his queer old junk burnt before his eyes. Many a Dutch and English +merchantman sailed from Batavia and Bombay in the days of the old East +India Company and has never more been heard of until some mutilated +survivor returned with a harrowing tale of Malay piracy and of the +lightning-like work of the dreaded kris. + +I do not know whether my kris has ever taken life or not. Had it done +so, I do not think the Sultan would have given it to me, for a kris +becomes almost priceless after its baptism of blood. It is handed +down from generation to generation, and its sanguine history becomes +a part of the education of the young. Next to his Koran the kris +is the most sacred thing the Malay possesses. He regards it with an +almost superstitious reverence. My kris is dear to me, not from any +superstitious reasons, but because it was given me by his Highness, +the Sultan of Johore, the only independent sovereign on the peninsula, +and because the gold of its sheath came from the jungle-covered slopes +of Mount Ophir. + +The maker of the kris is a person of importance among the Malays, +and ofttimes he is made by his grateful Rajah a Dato, or Lord, for +his skill. Like the blades of the sturdy armorers of the Crusades, +his blades are considered, as he fashions them from well-hammered and +well-tempered Celebes iron, works of art and models for futurity. He +is exceedingly punctilious in regard to their shape, size, and general +formation, and the process of giving them their beautiful water lines +is quite a ceremony. First the razor-like edges are covered with a +thin coating of wax to protect them from the action of the acids; +then a mixture of boiled rice, sulphur, and salt is put on the blade +and left for seven days until a film of rust rises to the surface. The +blade is then immersed in the water of a young cocoanut or the juice +of a pineapple and left seven days longer. It is next brushed with +the juice of a lemon until all the rust is cleared away, and then +rubbed with arsenic dissolved in lime-juice and washed with cold +spring water. Finally it is anointed with cocoanut oil, and as a +concluding test of its fineness and temper, it is said that in the +old days its owner would rush out into the kampong, or village, +and stab the first person he met. + +The sheath of the kris is generally made of kamooning wood, but often +of ivory, gold, or silver. The handle, while more frequently of wood +or buffalo horn, is sometimes of gold studded with precious stones and +worth more than all the other possessions of its owner put together. + +The kris, too, has its etiquette. It is always worn on the left side +stuck into the folds of the sarong, or skirt, the national dress of +the Malay. During an interview it is considered respectful to conceal +it; and its handle is turned with its point close to the body of the +wearer, if the wearer be friendly. If, however, there is ill blood +existing, and the wearer is angry, the kris is exposed, and the point +of the handle turned the reverse way. + +The kris as a weapon of offence and defence is now almost a thing +of the past. It is rapidly going the way of the tomahawk and the +boomerang--into the collector's cabinet. There is a law in Singapore +that forbids its being worn, and outside of Johore and the native +states it is seldom seen. It is still used as an executioner's knife +by the protected Sultan of Selangor, its keen point being driven +into the heart of the victim; but in a few years that practice, too, +will be abolished by the humane intervention of the English government. + +It is to be hoped that the record of the kris is not as bad as it +has been painted by some, and that at times in its bloody career it +has been on the side of justice and right. The part it took in the +piracy that once made the East Indian seas so famous was not always +done for the sake of gain, but often for revenge and for independence. + + + + + +THE WHITE RAJAH OF BORNEO + +The Founding of Sarawak + + +In the East Indian seas, by Europeans and natives alike, two names +are revered with a singleness and devotion that place them side by +side with the national heroes of all countries. + +The men that bear the names are Englishmen, yet the countless islands +of the vast Malayan archipelago are populated by a hundred European, +African, and Asiatic races. + +Sir Stamford Raffles founded the great city of Singapore, and Sir +James Brooke, the "White Rajah," carved out of a tropical wilderness +just across the equator, in Borneo, the kingdom of Sarawak. + +There is no one man in all history with whom you may compare Rajah +Brooke. His career was the score of a hero of the footlights or of +the dime novel rather than the life of an actual history-maker in +this prosaic nineteenth century. What is true of him is also true in +a less degree of his famous nephew and successor, Sir Charles Brooke, +G. C. M. C., the present Rajah. + +One morning in Singapore, as I sipped my tea and broke open one cool, +delicious mangosteen after another, I was reading in the daily Straits +Times an account of the descent of a band of head-hunting Dyaks from +the jungles of the Rejang River in Borneo on an isolated fishing +kampong, or village,--of how they killed men, women, and children, +and carried their heads back to their strongholds in triumph, and of +how, in the midst of their feasting and ceremonies, Rajah Brooke, +with a little company of fierce native soldiery, had surprised and +exterminated them to the last man; and just then the sound of heavy +cannonading in the harbor below caused me to drop my paper. + +In a moment the great guns from Fort Canning answered. I +counted--seventeen--and turned inquiringly to the naked punkah-wallah, +who stood just outside in the shade of the wide veranda, listlessly +pulling the rattan rope that moved the stiff fan above me. + +His brown, open palm went respectfully to his forehead. + +"His Highness, the Rajah of Sarawak," he answered proudly in Malay. "He +come in gunboat Ranee to the Gymkhana races,--bring gold cup for +prizes and fast runners. Come every year, Tuan." + +I had forgotten that it was the first day of the long-looked-for +Gymkhana races. A few hours later I met this remarkable man, whose +thrilling exploits had commanded my earliest boyish admiration. + +The kindly old Sultan of Johore, the old rebel Sultan of Pahang, +the Sultan of Lingae, in all the finery of their native silks and +jewels, the nobles of their courts, and a dozen other dignitaries, +were on the grandstand and in the paddock as we entered, yet no +one but a modest, gray-haired little man by the side of the English +governor had any place in my thoughts. We knew his history. It was +as romantic as the wild careers of Pizarro and Cortez; as charming +as those of Robinson Crusoe and the dear old Swiss Family Robinson; +as tragic as Captain Kidd's or Morgan's; and withal, it was modelled +after our own Washington. In him I saw the full realization of every +boy's wildest dreams,--a king of a tropical island. + +The bell above the judges' pavilion sounded, and a little whirlwind +of running griffins dashed by amid the yells of a thousand natives +in a dozen different tongues. The Rajah leaned out over the gayly +decorated railing with the eagerness of a boy, as he watched his own +colors in the thick of the race. + +The surging mass of nakedness below caught sight of him, and another +yell rent the air, quite distinct from the first, for Malayan and +Kling, Tamil and Siamese, Dyak and Javanese, Hindu, Bugis, Burmese, +and Lascar, recognized the famous White Rajah of Borneo, the man who, +all unaided, had broken the power of the savage head-hunting Dyaks, +and driven from the seas the fierce Malayan pirates. The yell was +not a cheer. It was a tribute that a tiger might make to his tamer. + +The Rajah understood. He was used to such sinister outbursts of +admiration, for he never took his eyes from the course. He was secure +on his throne now, but I could not but wonder if that yell, which sent +a strange thrill through me, did not bring up recollections of one of +the hundred sanguinary scenes through which he and his great uncle, the +elder Rajah Brooke, had gone when fighting for their lives and kingdom. + +The Sultan of Johore's griffin won, and the Rajah stepped back to +congratulate him. I, too, passed over to where he stood, and the +kindly old Sultan took me by the hand. + +"I have a very tender spot in my heart for all Americans," the Rajah +replied to his Highness's introduction. "It was your great republic +that first recognized the independence of Sarawak." + +As we chatted over the triumph of Gladstone, the silver bill, +the tariff, and a dozen topics of the day, I was thinking of the +head-hunters of whom I had read in the morning paper. I was thinking, +too, of how this man's uncle had, years before, with a boat's crew +of English boys, carved out of an unknown island a principality +larger than the state of New York, reduced its savage population +to orderly tax-paying citizens, cleared the Borneo and Java seas +of their thousands of pirate praus, and in their place built up a +merchant fleet and a commerce of nearly five millions of dollars a +year. The younger Rajah, too, had done his share in the making of +the state. In his light tweed suit and black English derby, he did +not look the strange, impossible hero of romance I had painted him; +but there was something in his quiet, clear, well-bred English accent, +and the strong, deep lines about his eyes and mouth, that impressed +one with a consciousness of tremendous reserve force. He spoke always +slowly, as though wearied by early years of fighting and exposure in +the searching heat of the Bornean sun. + +We became better acquainted later at balls and dinners, and he was +never tired of thanking me for my country's kindness. + + + +In 1819, when the English took Malacca and the Malay peninsula from +the Dutch, they agreed to surrender all claims to the islands south +of the pirate-infested Straits of Malacca. + +The Dutch, contented with the fabulously rich island of Java and its +twenty-six millions of mild-mannered natives, left the great islands +of Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua to the savage rulers and savage nations +that held them. + +The son of an English clergyman, on a little schooner, with a friend or +two and a dozen sailors, sailed into these little known and dangerous +waters one day nineteen years later. His mind was filled with dreams of +an East-Indian empire; he was burning to emulate Cortez and Pizarro, +without practising their abuses. He had entered the English army and +had been so dangerously wounded while leading a charge in India after +his superiors had fallen that he had been retired on a pension before +his twenty-first year. While regaining his health, he had travelled +through India, Malaya, and China, and had written a journal of his +wanderings. During this period his ambitions were crowding him on to +an enterprise that was as foolhardy as the first voyage of Columbus. + +He had spied those great tropical islands that touched the equator, +and he coveted them. + +After his father's death he invested his little fortune in a schooner, +and in spite of all the protests and prayers of his family and friends, +he sailed for Singapore, and thence across to the northwest coast of +Borneo, landing at Kuching, on the Sarawak River, in 1838. + +He had no clearly outlined plan of operations,--he was simply waiting +his chance. The province of Sarawak, a dependency of the Sultan of +Borneo, was governed by an old native rajah, whose authority was +menaced by the fierce, head-hunting Dyaks of the interior. Brooke's +chance had come. He boldly offered to put down the rebellion if the +Rajah would make him his general and second to the throne. The Rajah +cunningly accepted the offer, eager to let the hair-brained young +infidel annoy his foes, but with no intention of keeping his promise. + +After days of marching with his little crew and a small army of +natives, through the almost impenetrable rubber jungles, after a +dozen hard-fought battles and deeds of personal heroism, any one +of which would make a story, the head-hunters were crushed and some +kind of order restored. He refused to allow the Rajah to torture the +prisoners,--thereby winning their gratitude,--and he refused to be +dismissed from his office. He had won his rank, and he appealed to +the Sultan. The wily Sultan recognized that in this stranger he had +found a man who would be able to collect his revenue, and much to +Brooke's surprise, a courier entered Kuching, the capital, one day +and summarily dismissed the native Rajah and proclaimed the young +Englishman Rajah of Sarawak. + +Brooke was a king at last. His empire was before him, but he was +only king because the reigning Sultan relinquished a part of his +dominions that he was unable to control. The tasks to be accomplished +before he could make his word law were ones that England, Holland, +and the navies of Europe had shirked. His so-called subjects were +the most notorious and daring pirates in the history of the world; +they were head-hunters, they practised slavery, and they were cruel +and blood-thirsty on land and sea. Out of such elements this boy king +built his kingdom. How he did it would furnish tales that would outdo +Verne, Kingston, and Stevenson. + +He abolished military marauding and every form of slavery, established +courts, missions, and school houses, and waged war, single-handed, +against head-hunting and piracy. + +Head-hunting is to the Dyaks what amok is to the Malays or scalping to +the American Indians. It is even more. No Dyak woman would marry a man +who could not decorate their home with at least one human head. Often +bands of Dyaks, numbering from five to seven thousand, would sally +forth from their fortifications and cruise along the coast four or +five hundred miles, to surprise a village and carry the inhabitants' +heads back in triumph. + +To-day head-hunting is practically stamped out, as is running amok +among the Malays, although cases of each occur from time to time. + +As his subjects in the jungles were head-hunters, so those of the +coast were pirates. Every harbor was a pirate haven. They lived +in big towns, possessed forts and cannon, and acknowledged neither +the suzerainty of the Sultan or the domination of the Dutch. They +were stronger than the native rulers, and no European nation would +go to the great expense of life and treasure needed to break their +power. Brooke knew that his title would be but a mockery as long as +the pirates commanded the mouths of all his rivers. + +With his little schooner, armed with three small guns and manned by +a crew of white companions and Dyak sailors, he gave battle first +to the weaker strongholds, gradually attaching the defeated to his +standard. He found himself at the end of nine years their master and +a king in something more than name. Combined with the qualities of +a fearless fighter, he had the faculty of winning the good will and +admiration of his foes. + +The fierce Suloos and Illanums became his fast friends. He left their +chiefs in power, but punished every outbreak with a merciless hand. + +One of the many incidents of his checkered career shows that his spirit +was all-powerful among them. He had invited the Chinese from Amoy to +take up their residence at his capital, Kuching. They were traders +and merchants, and soon built up a commerce. They became so numerous +in time that they believed they could seize the government. The plot +was successful, and during a night attack they overcame the Rajah's +small guard, and he escaped to the river in his pajamas without a +single follower. + +Sir Charles told me one day, as we conversed on the broad veranda +of the consulate, that that night was the darkest in all his great +uncle's stormy life. The hopes and work of years were shattered at +a single blow, and he was an outcast with a price on his head. + +The homeless king knelt in the bottom of the prau and prayed for +strength, and then took up the oars and pulled silently toward +the ocean. Near morning he was abreast of one of the largest Suloo +forts--the home of his bitterest and bravest foes. + +He turned the head of his boat to the shore and landed unarmed and +undressed among the pirates. He surrendered his life, his throne, +and his honor, into their keeping. + +They listened silently, and then their scarred old chief stepped +forward and placed a naked kris in the white man's hand and kissed +his feet. + +Before the sun went down that day the White Rajah was on his throne +again, and ten thousand grim, fierce Suloos were hunting the Chinese +like a pack of bloodhounds. + +In 1848 Rajah Brooke decided to visit his old home in England, and +ask his countrymen for teachers and missions. His fame had preceded +him. All England was alive to his great deeds. There were greetings by +enthusiastic crowds wherever he appeared, banquets by boards of trade, +and gifts of freedom of cities. He was lodged in Balmoral Castle, +knighted by the Queen, made Consul-General of Borneo, Governor of +Labuan, Doctor of Laws by Oxford, and was the lion of the hour. + +He returned to Sarawak, accompanied by European officers and friends, +to carry on his great work of civilization, and to make of his little +tropical kingdom a recognized power. + +He died in 1868, and was carried back to England for burial, and I +predict that at no distant day a grateful people will rise up and +ask of England his body, that it may be laid to rest in the yellow +sands under the graceful palms of the unknown nation of which he was +the Washington. + +His nephew, Sir Charles Brooke, who had also been his faithful +companion for many years, succeeded him. + +Sarawak has to-day a coast-line of over four hundred miles, with an +area of fifty thousand square miles, and a population of three hundred +thousand souls. The country produces gold, silver, diamonds, antimony, +quicksilver, coal, gutta-percha, rubber, canes, rattan, camphor, +beeswax, edible bird's-nests, sago, tapioca, pepper, and tobacco, all +of which find their way to Singapore, and thence to Europe and America. + +The Rajah is absolute head of the state; but he is advised by +a legislative council composed of two Europeans and five native +chiefs. He has a navy of a number of small but effective gunboats, +and a well-trained and officered army of several hundred men, who look +after the wild tribes of the interior of Borneo and guard the great +coast-line from piratical excursions; otherwise they would be useless, +as his rule is almost fatherly, and he is dearly beloved by his people. + +It is impossible in one short sketch to relate a tenth of the daring +deeds and startling adventures of these two white rajahs. Their lives +have been written in two bulky volumes, and the American boy who loves +stories that rival his favorite authors of adventure will find them by +going to the library and asking for the "Life of the Rajah of Sarawak." + +There is much in this "Life" that might be read by our statesmen +and philanthropists with profit; for the building of a kingdom in a +jungle of savage men and savage beasts places the name of Brooke of +Borneo among those of the world's great men, as it does among those +of the heroes of adventure. + +One evening we were pacing back and forth on the deck of the Rajah's +magnificent gunboat, the Ranee. A soft tropical breeze was blowing off +shore. Thousands of lights from running rickshas and bullock carts +were dancing along the wide esplanade that separates the city of +Singapore from the sea. The strange old-world cries from the natives +came out to us in a babel of sound. + +Chinese in sampans and Malays in praus were gliding about our bows and +back and forth between the great foreign men-of-war that overshadowed +us. The Orient was on every hand, and I looked wonderingly at the +slightly built, gray-haired man at my side, with a feeling that he +had stepped from out some wild South Sea tale. + +"Your Highness," I said, as we chatted, "tell me how you made subjects +out of pirates and head-hunters, when our great nation, with all its +power and gold, has only been able after one hundred years to make +paupers out of our Indians." + +"Do you see that man?" he replied, pointing to a stalwart, brown-faced +Dyak, who in the blue and gold uniform of Sarawak was leaning idly +against the bulwarks. "That is the Dato (Lord) Imaum, Judge of the +Supreme Court of Sarawak. He was one of the most redoubtable of +the Suloo pirates. My uncle fought him for eight years. In all that +time he never broke his word in battle or in truce. When Sir James +was driven from his throne by the Chinese, the Dato Imaum fought to +reinstate him as his master. + +"Civilization is only skin deep, and so is barbarism. Had your country +never broken its word and been as just as it is powerful, your red +men would have been to-day where our brown men are--our equals." + +An hour later I stepped into my launch, which was lying alongside. The +American flag at the peak came down, and the guns of the Ranee belched +forth the consular salute. + +I instinctively raised my hat as we glided over the phosphorescent +waters of the harbor, for in my thoughts I was still in the presence +of one of the great ones of the earth. + + + + + +AMOK! + +A Malayan Story + + +If you run amok in Malaya, you may perhaps kill your enemy or wound +your dearest friend, but you may be certain that in the end you will +be krissed like a pariah dog. Every man, woman, and child will turn +his or her hand against you, from the mother who bore you to the +outcast you have befriended. The laws are as immutable as fate. + +Just where the great river Maur empties its vast volume of red water +across a shifting bar into the Straits of Malacca, stands the kampong +of Bander Maharani. + +The Sultan Abubaker named the village in honor of his dead Sultana, +and here, close down to the bank, was the palace of his nephew--the +Governor, Prince Sulliman. + +A wide, red, well-paved road separated the village of thatch and +grass from the palace grounds, and ended at a wharf, up to which a +steam-launch would dash from time to time, startling the half-grown +crocodiles that slept beneath the rickety timbers. + +Sometimes the little Prince Mat, the son of the Governor, came down to +the wharf and played with the children of the captain of the launch, +while his Tuan Penager, or Teacher, dozed beneath his yellow umbrella; +and often, at their play, his Excellency would pause and watch them, +smiling kindly. + +At such times, the captain of the launch would fall upon his face, and +thank the Prophet that he had lived to see that day. "For," he would +say, "some day he may speak to me, and ask me for the wish I treasure." + +Then he would go back to his work, polishing the brass on the railings +of his boat, regardless of the watchful eyes that blinked at him from +the mud beneath the wharf. + +He smiled contentedly, for his mind was made up. He would not ask to +be made master of the Sultan's marvellous yacht, that was sent out +from Liverpool,--although the possibility made him catch his breath: +he would ask nothing for himself,--he would ask that his Excellency +let his son Noa go to Mecca, that he might become a hadji and then +some day--who knows--Noa might become a kateeb in the attap-thatched +mosque back of the palace. + +And Noa, unmindful of his father's dreaming, played with the little +Prince, kicking the ragga ball, or sailing miniature praus out into +the river, and off toward the shimmering straits. But often they +sat cross-legged and dropped bits of chicken and fruit between the +palm sleepers of the wharf to the birch-colored crocodiles below, +who snapped them up, one after another, never taking their small, +cruel eyes off the brown faces that peered down at them. + +Child-life is measured by a few short years in Malaya. The hot, +moist air and the fierce rays of the equatorial sun fall upon child +and plant alike, and they grow so fast that you can almost hear them! + +The little Prince soon forgot his childhood companions in the gorgeous +court of his Highness, the Sultan of Johore, and Noa took the place +of his father on the launch, while the old man silently mourned as he +leaned back in its stern, and alternately watched the sunlight that +played along the carefully polished rails, and the deepening shadows +that bound the black labyrinth of mangrove roots on the opposite +shore. The Governor had never noted his repeated protestations and +deep-drawn sighs. + +"But who cares," he thought. "It is the will of Allah! The Prince +will surely remember us when he returns." + +On the very edge of Bander Maharani, just where the almost endless +miles of betel-nut palms shut from view the yellow turrets of the +palace, stood the palm-thatched bungalow in which Anak grew, in a +few short years, from childhood to womanhood. The hot, sandy soil all +about was covered with the flaxen burs of the betel, and the little +sunlight that found its way down through the green and yellow fronds +drew rambling checks on the steaming earth, that reminded Anak of +the plaid on the silken sarong that Noa's father had given her the +day she was betrothed to his son. + +Up the bamboo ladder and into the little door,--so low that even Anak, +with her scant twelve years, was forced to stoop,--she would dart when +she espied Noa coming sedately down the long aisle of palms that led +away to the fungus-covered canal that separated her little world from +the life of the capital city. + +There was coquetry in every glance, as she watched him, from behind +the carved bars of her low window, drop contentedly down on the bench +beneath a scarred old cocoanut that stood directly before the door. She +thought almost angrily that he ought to have searched a little for her: +she would have repaid him with her arms about his neck. + +From the cool darkness of the bungalow came the regular click of her +mother's loom. She could see the worker's head surrounded by a faint +halo of broken twilight. Her mind filled in the details that were +hidden by the green shadows--the drawn, stooping figure, the scant +black hair, the swollen gums, the syrah-stained teeth, and sunken +neck. She impulsively ran her soft brown fingers over her own warm, +plump face, through the luxuriant tresses of her heavy hair, and then +gazed out at the recumbent figure on the bench, waiting patiently +for her coming. + +"Soon my teeth, which the American lady that was visiting his +Excellency said were so strong and beautiful, will be filed and +blackened, and I will be weaving sarongs for Noa." + +She shuddered, she knew not why, and went slowly across the elastic +bamboo strips of the floor and down the ladder. + +Noa watched the trim little figure with its single covering of cotton, +the straight, graceful body, and perfectly poised head and delicate +neck, the bare feet and ankles, the sweet, comely face with its fresh +young lips, free from the red stains of the syrah leaf, and its big +brown eyes that looked from beneath heavy silken lashes. He smiled, +but did not stir as she came to him. He was proud of her after +the manner of his kind. Her beauty appealed to him unconsciously, +although he had never been taught to consider beauty, or even seek +it. He would have married her without a question, if she had been as +hideous as his sister, who was scarred with the small-pox. He would +never have complained if, according to Malayan custom, he had not +been permitted to have seen her until the marriage day. He must marry +some one, now that the Prince had gone to Johore, and his father had +given up all hope of seeing him a hadji; and besides, the captain of +the launch and the old punghulo, or chief, Anak's father, were fast +friends. The marriage meant little more to the man. + +But to Anak,--once the Prince Mat had told her she was pretty, when +she had come down to the wharf to beg a small crocodile to bury +underneath her grandmother's bungalow to keep off white ants, and +her cheeks glowed yet under her brown skin at the remembrance. Noa +had never told her she was beautiful! + +A featherless hen was scratching in the yellow sand at her feet, and a +brood of featherless chicks were following each cluck with an intensity +of interest that left them no time to watch the actions of the lovers. + +"Why did you come?" she asked in the soft liquid accents of her people. + +There was an eagerness in the question that suggested its own answer. + +"To bring a message to the punghulo," he replied, not noticing the +coquetry of the look. + +"Oh! then you are in haste. Why do you wait? My father is at the +canal." + +"It is about you," he went on, his face glowing. "The Prince is coming +back, and we are to be married. My father, the captain, made bold +to ask his Excellency to let the Prince be present, and he granted +our prayer." + +She turned away to hide her disappointment. It was the thought of +the honor that was his in the eyes of the province, and not that +he was to marry her, that set the lights dancing in his eyes! She +hated him then for his very love; it was so sure and confident in +its right to overlook hers in this petty attention from a mere boy, +who had once condescended to praise her girlish beauty. + +"When is the Prince coming?" she questioned, ignoring his clumsy +attempt to take her hand. + +"During the feast of Hari Raya Hadji," he replied, smiling. + +She kicked some sand with her bare toes, amongst the garrulous +chickens. + +"Tell me about the Prince." + +Her mood had changed. Her eyes were wide open, and her face +all aglow. She was wondering if he would notice her above the +bridesmaids,--if it was not for her sake he was coming? + +And then her lover told her of the gossip of the palace,--of the +Prince's life in the Sultan's court,--of his wit and grace,--of how +he had learned English, and was soon to go to London, where he would +be entertained by the Queen. + +Above their heads the wind played with the tattered flags of the palms, +leaving openings here and there that exposed the steely-white glare +of the sky, and showed, far away to the northward, the denuded red +dome of Mount Ophir. + +The girl noted the clusters of berries showing redly against the +dark green of some pepper-vines that clambered up the black nebong +posts of her home; she wondered vaguely as he talked if she were to +go on through life seeing pepper-vines and betel-nut trees, and hot +sand and featherless hens, and never get beyond the shadow of the +mysterious mountains. + +Possibly it was the sight of the white ladies from Singapore, possibly +it was the few light words dropped by the half-grown Prince, possibly +it was something within herself,--something inherited from ancestors +who had lived when the fleets of Solomon and Hiram sought for gold +and ivory at the base of the distant mountains,--that drove her to +revolt, and led her to question the right of this marriage that was +to seal her forever to the attap bungalow, and the narrow, colorless +life that awaited her on the banks of the Maur. She turned fiercely +on her wooer, and her brown eyes flashed. + +"You have never asked me whether I love!" + +The Malay half rose from his seat. The look of surprise and perplexity +that had filled his face gave place to one of almost childish wonder. + +"Of course you love me. Is it not so written in the Koran,--a wife +shall reverence her husband?" + +"Why?" she questioned angrily. + +He paused a moment, trying dimly to comprehend the question, and then +answered slowly,-- + +"Because it is written." + +She did not draw away when he took her hand; he had chosen his answer +better than he knew. + +"Because it is written," that was all. Her own feeble revolt was but +as a breath of air among the yellow fronds above their heads. + +When Noa had gone, the girl drew herself wearily up the ladder, and +dropped on a cool palm mat near the never ceasing loom. For almost +the first time in her short, uneventful life she fell to thinking +of herself. She wondered if the white ladies in Singapore married +because all had been arranged by a father who forgot you the moment +you disappeared within the door of your own house,--if they loved one +man better than another,--if they could always marry the one they +liked best. She wondered why every one must be married,--why could +she not go on and live just as she had,--she could weave and sew? + +A gray lizard darted from out its hiding-place in the attap at a +great atlas moth which worked its brilliant wings; clumsily it tore +their delicate network until the air was full of a golden dust. + +"I am the moth," she said softly, and raised her hand too late to +save it from its enemy. + +The Sultan's own yacht, the Pante, brought the Prince back to Maur, +and as it was low tide, the Governor's launch went out beyond the +bar and met him. + +The band played the national anthem when he landed on the pier, +and Inchi Mohammed, the Tuan Hakim, or Chief Justice, made a speech. + +The red gravel walk from the landing to the palace gate was strewn +with hibiscus and alamander and yellow convolvulus flowers, and +bordered with the delicate maidenhair fern. + +Johore and British flags hung in great festoons from the deep +verandas of the palace, and the brass guns from the fort gave forth +the royal salute. + +Anak was in the crowd with her father, the old chief, and her +affianced, Noa. She had put on her silk sarong and kabaya, and some +curious gold brooches that were her mother's. In her coal-black hair +she had stuck some sprays of the sweet-smelling chumpaka flower. On her +slender bare feet were sandals cunningly wrought in colored beads. Her +soft brown eyes glowed with excitement, and she edged away from the +punghulo's side until she stood close up in front, so near that she +could almost touch the sarong of the Tuan Hakim as he read. + +The Prince had grown so since he left that she scarcely knew him, +and save for the narrow silk sarong about his waist, he was dressed +in the English clothes of a Lieutenant of his Highness's artillery. In +the front of his rimless cap shone the arms of Johore set in diamonds, +exactly as his father, the Governor, wore them. He paused and smiled +as he thanked the cringing Tuan Hakim. + +The blood rushed to the girl's cheeks, and she nearly fell down at +his feet. She realized but dimly that Noa was plucking at her kabaya, +wishing her to go with him to see the bungalow that his father was +building for them. + +"The posts are to be of polished nebong" he was saying, "the wood-work +of maranti wood from Pahang; and there is to be a cote, ever so +cunningly woven of green and yellow bamboo, for your ring-doves, +under the attap of the great eaves above the door." + +She turned wearily toward her lover, and the bright look faded from +her comely face. With a half-uttered sigh she drew off her sandals +and tucked them carefully beneath the silver zone that held her sarong +in place. + +"Anak," he said softly, as they left the hot, red streets, filled +with lumbering bullock-carts and omnipresent rickshas, "why do you +look away when I talk of our marriage? Is it because the Koran teaches +modesty in woman, or is it because you are over-proud of your husband +when you see him among other men?" + +But the girl was not listening. + +He looked at her keenly, and as he saw the red blood mantle her cheek, +he smiled and went on:-- + +"It was good of you to wear the sarong I gave you, and your best +kabaya and the flowers I like in your hair. I heard more than one +say that it showed you would make a good wife in spite of our knowing +one another before marriage." + +"You think that it was for you that I put on all this bravery?" she +asked, looking him straight in the face. "Am I not to be your wife? Can +I not dress in honor of the young Prince and--Allah?" + +He turned to stammer a reply. The hot blood mounted to his temples, +and he grasped the girl's arm so that she cried out with pain. + +"You are to be my wife, and I your master. It is my wish that you +should ever dress in honor of our rulers and our Allah, for in showing +honor to those above you, you honor your husband. I do not understand +you at all times, but I intend that you shall understand me. Sudah!" + +"Tuan Allah Suka!" (The Lord Allah has willed it), she murmured, +and they plodded on through the hot sand in silence. + +After his return they saw the Prince often, and once when Anak came +down to the wharf to bring a durian to the captain of the launch +from her father, the old punghulo, she met him face to face, and he +touched her cheek with his jewelled fingers, and said she had grown +much prettier since he left. + +Noa was not angry at the Prince, rather he was proud of his notice, +but a sinister light burned in his eyes as he saw the flushed face +and drooping head of the girl. + +And once the Prince passed by the punghulo's home on his way into +the jungle in search of a tiger, and inquired for his daughter. Anak +treasured the remembrance of these little attentions, and pondered +over them day after day, as she worked by her mother's side at the +loom, or sat outside in the sand, picking the flossy burs from the +betel-nuts, watching the flickering shadows that every breeze in the +leaves above scattered in prodigal wastefulness about and over her. + +She told herself over and over, as she followed with dreamy eyes the +vain endeavors of a chameleon to change his color, as the shadows +painted the sand beneath him first green and then white, that her own +hopes and strivings were just as futile; and yet when Noa would sit +beside her and try to take her hand, she would fly into a passion, +and run sobbing up the ladder of her home. Noa became moody in +turn. His father saw it and his mates chaffed him, but no one guessed +the cause. That it should be for the sake of a woman would have been +beyond belief; for did not the Koran say, "If thy wife displease thee, +beat her until she see the sin of her ways"? One day, as he thought, +it occurred to him, "She does not want to marry me!" and he asked her, +as though it made any difference. There were tears in her eyes, but +she only threw back her head and laughed, and replied as she should:-- + +"That is no concern of ours. Is your father, the captain, displeased +with my father's, the punghulo's, dowry?" + +And yet Noa felt that Anak knew what he would have said. + +He went away angry, but with a gnawing at his heart that frightened +him,--a strange, new sickness, that seemed to drive him from despair +to a longing for revenge, with the coming and going of each quick +breath. He had been trying to make love in a blind, stumbling way; +he did not know it,--why should he? Marriage was but a bargain in +Malaya. But Anak with her finer instincts felt it, and instead of +fanning this tiny, unknown spark, she was driving it into other and +baser channels. + +In spite of her better nature she was slowly making a demon out of a +lover,--a lover to whom but a few months before she would have given +freely all her love for a smile or the lightest of compliments. + +From that day until the day of the marriage she never spoke to her +lover save in the presence of her elders,--for such was the law of +her race. + +She submitted to the tire-women who were to prepare her for the +ceremony, uttering no protest as they filed off her beautiful white +teeth and blackened them with lime, nor when they painted the palms of +her hands and the nails of her fingers and toes red with henna. She +showed no interest in the arranging of her glossy black hair with +jewelled pins and chumpaka flowers, or in the draping of her sarong +and kabaya. Only her lacerated gums ached until one tear after another +forced its way from between her blackened lids down her rouged cheeks. + +There had been feasting all day outside under the palms, and the +youths, her many cousins, had kicked the ragga ball, while the elders +sat about and watched and talked and chewed betel-nut. There were +great rice curries on brass plates, with forty sambuls> within easy +reach of all, luscious mangosteens, creamy durians and mangoes, and +betel-nuts with lemon leaves and lime and spices. Fires burned about +among the graceful palms at night, and lit up the silken sarongs and +polished kris handles of the men, and gold-run kabayas of the women. + +The Prince came as he promised, just as the old Kadi had pronounced +the couple man and wife, and laid at Anak's feet a wide gold bracelet +set with sapphires, and engraven with the arms of Johore. He dropped +his eyes to conceal the look of pity and abhorrence that her swollen +gums and disfigured features inspired, and as he passed across the +mats on the bamboo floor he inwardly cursed the customs of his people +that destroyed the beauty of its women. He had lived among the English +of Singapore, and dined at the English Governor's table. + +A groan escaped the girl's lips as she dropped back among the cushions +of her tinsel throne. Noa saw the little tragedy, and for the first +time understood its full import. He ground his teeth together, and +his hand worked uneasily along the scabbard of his kris. + +In another moment the room was empty, and the bride and groom were left +side by side on the gaudily bedecked platform, to mix and partake of +their first betel-nut together. Mechanically Noa picked the broken +fragments of the nut from its brass cup, from another a syrah leaf +smeared with lime, added a clove, a cardamom, and a scraping of mace, +and handed it to his bride. She took it without raising her eyes, and +placed it against her bleeding gums. In a moment a bright red juice +oozed from between her lips and ran down the corner of her distorted +mouth. Noa extended his hand, and she gave him the half-masticated +mass. He raised it to his own mouth, and then for the first time +looked the girl full in the face. + +There was no love-light in the drooping brown eyes before him. The +syrah-stained lips were slightly parted, exposing the feverish gums, +and short, black teeth. Her hands hung listlessly by her side, and +only for the color that came and went beneath the rouge of her brown +cheeks, she might have been dead to this last sacred act of their +marriage vows. + +"Anak!" he said slowly, drawing closer to her side. "Anak, I will be +a true husband to you. You shall be my only wife--" + +He paused, expecting some response, but she only gazed stolidly up +at the smoke-begrimed attap of the roof. + +"Anak--" he repeated, and then a shudder passed through him, and his +eyes lit up with a wild, frenzied gleam, + +A moment he paused irresolute, and then with a spring he grasped the +golden handle of his kris and with one bound was across the floor, +and on the sand below among the revellers. + +For an instant the snake-like blade of the kris shone dully in the +firelight above his head, and then with a yell that echoed far out +among the palms, it descended straight into the heart of the nearest +Malay. + +The hot life-blood spurted out over his hand and naked arm, and dyed +the creamy silk of his wedding baju a dark red. + +Once more he struck, as he chanted a promise from the Koran, and the +shrill, agonized cry of a woman broke upon the ears of the astonished +guests. + +Then the fierce sinister yell of "Amok! amok!" drowned the woman's +moans, and sent every Malay's hand to the handle of his kris. + +"Amok!" sprang from every man's lips, while women and children, and +those too aged to take part in the wild saturnalia of blood that was +to follow, scattered like doves before a hawk. + +With the rapidity of a Malayan tiger, the crazed man leaped from +one to another, dealing deadly strokes with his merciless weapon, +right and left. There was no gleam of pity or recognition in his +insane glance when he struck down the sister he had played with from +childhood, neither did he note that his father's hand had dealt the +blow that dropped his right arm helpless to his side. Only a cry of +baffled rage and hate escaped his lips, as he snatched his falling +knife with his left hand. Another blow, and his father fell across +the quivering body of his sister. + +"O Allah, the all-merciful and loving kind!" he sang, as the blows +rained upon his face and breast. "O Allah, the compassionate." + +The golden handle of his kris shone like a dying coal in the centre +of a circle of flamelike knives; then with one wild plunge forward, +into the midst of the gleaming points, it went out. + +"Sudah!--It is finished," and a Malay raised his steel-bladed limbing +to thrust it into the bare breast of the dying man. + +The young Prince stepped out into the firelight and raised his +hand. The long, shrill wail of a tiger from far off toward Mount +Ophir seemed to pulsate and quiver on the weird stillness of the night. + +Noa opened his eyes. They were the eyes of a child, and a faint, +sweet smile flickered across the ghastly features and died away in +a spasm of pain. + +A picture of their childhood days flashed through the mind of the +Prince and softened the haughty lines of his young face. He saw, +through it all, the wharf below the palace grounds,--the fat old +penager dozing in the sun,--the raft they built together, and the +birch-colored crocodiles that lay among the sinuous mangrove roots. + +"Noa," he whispered, as he imperiously motioned the crowd back. + +The dying man's lips moved. The Prince bent lower. + +"She--loved--you. Yes--" Noa muttered, striving to hold his +failing breath,--"love is from--Allah. But not for--me;--for +English--and--Princes." + +They threw his body without the circle of the fires. + +The tense feline growl of the tiger grew more distinct. The Prince's +hand sought the jewelled handle of his kris. There was a swift rush +in the darkness, a crashing among the rubber-vines, a short, quick +snarl, and then all was still. + +If you run amok in Malaya, you may kill your enemy or your dearest +friend, but you will be krissed in the end like a pariah dog. Every +man, woman, and child will turn his hand against you, from the mother +who bore you to the outcast you have befriended. + +The laws are as immutable as fate. + + + + + +LEPAS'S REVENGE + +The Tale of a Monkey + + +There were many monkeys--I came near saying there were hundreds--in +the little clump of jungle trees back of the bungalow. We could lie +in our long chairs, any afternoon, when the sun was on the opposite +side of the house, and watch them from behind the bamboo "chicks" +swinging and playing in the maze of rubber-vines. + +They played tag and high-spy, and a variety of other games. When +they were tired of playing, they fell to quarrelling, scolding, +and chasing each other among the stiff, varnished leaves, making so +much noise that I could not get my afternoon nap, and often had to +call to the syce to throw a stone into the branches. Then they would +scuttle away to the topmost parts of the great trees and there join +in giving me a rating that ought to have made me ashamed forever to +look another monkey in the face. + +One day, I went out and threw a stick at them myself, and the next +day I found my shoes, which the Chinese "boy" had pipe-clayed and +put out in the sun to dry, missing; and the day after I found the +netting of my mosquito house torn from top to bottom. + +So I was not in the best of humors when I was awakened, one afternoon, +by the whistling of a monkey close to my chair. I reached out quickly +for my cork helmet which I had thrown down by my side. As it was there, +I looked up in surprise to see what had become of my visitor. + +There he sat up against the railing of the veranda with his legs +cramped up under him, ready to flee if I made a threatening gesture. +His face was turned toward me, with the thin, hairless skin of its +upper lip drawn back, showing a perfect row of milk-white teeth that +were chattering in deadly terror. The whole expression of his face +was one of conciliation and entreaty. + +I knew that it was all make-believe, so I half closed my eyes and +did not move. The chattering stopped. The little fellow looked about +curiously, drew his mouth up into a pucker, whistled once or twice +to make sure I was not awake, and reached out his bony arm for a few +crumbs of cake that had fallen near. + +He was not more than a foot in height. His diminutive body seemed +to have been fitted into a badly worn skin that was two sizes too +large for him, and the scalp of his forehead moved about like an +overgrown wig. + +He was the most ordinary kind of gray, jungle monkey, not even a +wah-wah or spider face. + +"Well," I said, after we had thoroughly inspected each other, "where +are my shoes?" + +Like a flash the whistling ceased, and with a pathetic trembling of +his thin upper lip he commenced to beg with his mouth, and to put up +his homely little hands in mute appeal. + +For a moment I feared he would go into convulsions, but I soon +discovered that my sympathy, had been wasted. + +Then I noticed, for the first time, that there was a leather strap +around his body just in front of his back legs, and that a string was +attached to it, which ran through the railings and off the veranda. I +looked over, and there, squatting on his sandalled feet, was a Malay, +with the other end of the string in his hand. + +He arose, smiling, touched his forehead with the back of his brown +palm, and asked blandly:-- + +"Tuan, want to buy?" + +The calm assurance of the man amused me. + +"What, that miserable little monkey?" I said. "Do you take me for a +tourist? Look up in those trees and you will see monkeys that know +boiled rice from padi." + +The man grinned and showed his brilliantly red teeth and gums. + +"Tuan see. This monkey very wise," and he made a motion with his +stick. The little fellow sprang from the railing to his bare head, +and sat holding on to his long black hair. + +"See, Tuan," and he made another motion, and the monkey leaped to +the ground and commenced to run around his master, hopping first +on one foot and then on the other, raising his arms over his head +like a ballet dancer. After every revolution he would stop and turn +a handspring. + +The Malay all the time kept up a droning kind of a song in his native +tongue, improvising as he went along. + +The tenor of it was that one Hamat, a poor Malay, but a good +Mohammedan, who had never been to Mecca, wanted to go to become a +Hadji. He had no money but he had a good monkey that was very dear +to him. He had found it in a distant jungle, beyond Johore, when a +little baby; had brought it up like one of his own children and had +taught it to dance and salaam. + +Now he must sell the monkey to the great Tuan, or Lord, that the +money might help take him to Mecca. The monkey must dance well and +please the mighty Tuan. + +As the little fellow danced, he kept one eye on me as though he +understood it all. + +"How old is he?" I asked, becoming interested. + +"Just as old as your Excellency would like," he replied, bowing. + +"Is he a year old?" + +"If the Tuan please." + +"Well, how much do you want for him?" + +"What your Excellency can give." + +"Twenty-five dollars?" I asked. + +His face lit up from chin to forehead. He hitched nervously at the +folds of his sarong, and changed the quid of red betel-nut from one +corner of his mouth to the other. + +"Here, Hamat," I said, laughing, "here is five dollars; take it; +when you come back from Mecca with a green turban come and see me. If +I am sick of the monkey, you can have him back." + +So commenced our acquaintance with Lepas. We got into the habit +of calling him Lepas, because it was the Malay for "let go," which +definition we broadened until it became a term of correction for every +form of mischief. He was such a restless, active little imp, with +hands into everything and upon everything, that it was "Lepas!" from +morning to night. + +He soon learned the word's twofold meaning. If we said "Lepas" sternly, +he subsided at once; but when we called it pleasantly he came running +across the room and leaped into our laps. + +It did not take Lepas as long to forget his former master as it did +to forget his former habits. In truth, his civilization was never +more than skin deep. + +He would sit for hours cuddled up in the mistress's lap, playing +with her work and making deft slaps at passing flies, until he +had thoroughly convinced her of his perfect trustworthiness. Then, +the moment her back was turned, he would slip away to her bureau, +and such a mess as he would make of her ribbons and laces! + +I think he liked the servants better than he did us. He would dance +and turn handsprings and salaam for them, but never for the mistress +or myself. Such tricks, he seemed to think, were beneath his new +position in society. + +He had a standing grudge against me, however, for insisting on his +bath in the big Shanghai jar every day, and took delight in rolling +in the red dust of the road the moment he was through. + +It was not long before he had a feud with the monkeys in the trees, +back of the house. He would stand on the ground, within easy reach +of the house, and as saucily as you please, till they were worked up +into a white heat of rage over his remarks. + +Once he caught a baby monkey that had become entangled in the wiry +lallang grass under the trees, and dragged it screeching into the +house. Before we could get to him he had nearly drowned it by treating +it to a bath,--an act, I suppose, intended to convey to me his opinion +of my humane efforts to keep him clean. + +I expected as a matter of course to lose another pair of shoes +or something, in payment for this unneighborly behavior, but the +colony in the trees seemed to know that I was innocent. It was not +long before they caught the true culprit, and gave him such a beating +that he was quiet and subdued for days. + +But Lepas was a lovable little fellow with all his mischief. Every +afternoon when I came home from the office, tired out with the heat +and the fierce glare of the sun, he would hop over to my chair, +whistle soothingly, and make funny little chirrups with his lips, +until I noticed him. + +Then he would crawl quietly up the legs of the chair until he reached +my shoulder, where he would commence with his cool little fingers to +inspect my eyes and nose, and to pick over carefully each hair of my +mustache and head. + +So we forgave him when he pulled all the feathers out of a ring-dove +that was a valued present from an old native rajah; when he turned +lamp-oil into the ice cream, and when he broke a rare Satsuma bowl +in trying to catch a lizard. He was always so penitent after each +misadventure! + +We had heard that Hamat had sailed for Jedda with a shipload of +pilgrims and were therefore expecting him back soon; but we had +decided not to give up Lepas. He had become a sort of necessity about +the house. + +Next door to us, lived a high official of the English service. He was +a sour, cross old man and did not like pets. Even the monkeys in the +trees knew better than to go into his "compound," or inclosure. + +But Lepas started off on a voyage of discovery one day, and not only +invaded his compound, but actually entered his house. The official +caught him in the act of hiding his shaving-set between the palm +thatch of the roof and the cheese-cloth ceiling. Recognizing Lepas, +he did not kill him, but took him by his leathern girdle and soused +him in his bath-tub, until he was so near dead that it took him hours +to crawl home. + +Lepas went around with a sad, injured expression on his wrinkled +little face, for days. Not even a mangosteen sprinkled with sugar +could awaken his enthusiasm. + +He went so far as to make up with the monkeys in the trees, and once +or twice I caught him condescending to have a game of leap-frog with +them. I made up my mind that he had determined to turn over a new leaf, +but the syce shook his head knowingly and said:-- + +"Lepas all the time thinking. He thinks bad things." + +And so it proved. + +One night the mistress gave a very big dinner party. The high official +from next door was there. So were several other high officials of +Singapore, the general commanding her Majesty's troops, and the +foreign consuls and members of Legislative Council. + +It was a hot night, and the punkah-wallah outside kept the punkah, or +mechanical fan, switching back and forth over our heads with a rapidity +that made us fear its ropes would break, as very often happened. + +Suddenly there was a crash, and a champagne glass struck squarely in +the high official's soup and spattered it all over his white expanse +of shirt front. We all looked up at the punkah. At the same instant +a big, soft mango smashed in the high official's face and changed +its ruddy red color to a sickly yellow. + +The women screamed, and the men jumped up from the table. Then began +a regular fusillade of wine glasses and tropical fruits. + +Sometimes they hit the high official from next door, at whom they all +seemed to be aimed, but more often they fell upon the table, among +the glass and dishes. In a moment everything was in wild confusion, +and the mistress's beautifully decorated table looked as though a +bomb had exploded on it. + +The Chinese "boys" made a rush for the end of the room, and there, +up on the sideboard, among the glass, pelting his enemy, the high +official, as fast as he could throw, was Lepas. + +A finger bowl struck the butler full in the face, and gave the monkey +time to make his escape out into the darkness through the wide-open +doors. + +We saw nothing more of Lepas for a week or more; we had, indeed, about +given him up, wondering as to his whereabouts, when one afternoon, as I +was taking my usual post-tiffin siesta on the cool side of the great, +wide-spreading veranda, I heard a timid whistle, and looked up to see +Lepas seated on the railing, as sad and humble as any truant schoolboy. + +His hair was matted and faded and his face was dirty. His form had +lost some of the plumpness that had come to it with good living, +but there was the same wicked twinkle in his eyes, and the same +hypocritical deceit in his bearing as of old. + +I reached out my hand to take him, but he hopped a few feet away and +began to beg with his teeth. + +"Lepas," I said, "you have a bad heart. I wash my hands of you. When +Hamat comes back you can go to him and be an ordinary, low caste +monkey. Now go! I never want to see you again!" + +Lepas puckered up his lips and whistled mournfully for a few moments, +but seeing no sign of forgiveness in my face he jumped down and began +to turn handsprings and dance with the most demure grace. + +I took no notice of him, and after a few vain efforts to attract +my attention, he hopped dejectedly off the veranda across the lawn, +and disappeared among the timboso trees and rubber-vines. + +Two weeks later Hamat returned from Mecca. He paid me a visit in +state--white robe and green turban. I shook hands and called him by +his new title of nobility, Tuan Hadji, but he did not refer to Lepas. + +Before many minutes he commenced to look wistfully about. I pointed +to the trees back of the house. He went out under them and called +two or three times. + +There was a great chattering among the rubber-vines, and in a moment +down came Lepas and sprang to his old master's shoulder as happy as +a lover. + +I never saw Lepas but once again, and that was one evening on the ocean +esplanade. He was in the centre of an admiring circle of half-nude +Malay and Hindu boys, going through his quaint antics, while Hamat +squatted before him beating on a crocodile-hide drum and singing a +plaintive, monotonous song. + +When it was finished, Lepas took an empty cocoanut shell and went +out into the crowd to collect pennies. + +I threw in a dollar. Lepas salaamed low as he snatched it out and bit +it to test its genuineness. It was his latest accomplishment. Then +he hid himself among the laughing crowd. + +That Lepas knew me, I could tell by the droop in his eye and the +quick glance he gave to the right and left, to see if there was room +to escape in case I made an effort to avenge my wrongs. + +I had no desire, however, to renew the acquaintance, and was quite +willing to let by-gones be by-gones. + + + + + +KING SOLOMON'S MINES + +Being an Account of an Ascent of Mount Ophir in Malaya, by His +Excellency, the Tuan Hakim of Maur, and the Writer + + + "And they came to Ophir, and fetched + from thence gold, four hundred and + twenty talents, and brought it to + King Solomon."--1 Kings IX. 28. + + "For the King's ships went to Tarshish + with the servants of Huram; every + three years once came the ships of + Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, + ivory, and apes, and peacocks." + --2 Chronicles VIII. 21. + + +The rose tints of a tropical sunrise had broken through the heavy +bamboo chicks that jealously guarded the rapidly fleeting half-lights +of my room: there came three deferential taps at the door, and the +smiling, olive-tinted face of Ah Minga appeared at the opening. "Tabek, +Tuan," he saluted, as he raised the mosquito curtains, and placed a +tray of tea and mangosteens on a table by my side. + +I sprang to the floor and across the heavily rugged room, and pulled +up the offending chick. + +Across the palace grounds, fresh from their morning bath, across the +broad river Maur, for the nonce black in the shadow of the jungle, +across the gilded tops of the jungle, forty miles away as the crow +flies, rested the serrated peak of Mount Ophir. + +Directly below me, a soldier in a uniform of duck and a rimless cap +with a gold band was pacing up and down the gravelled walk. A little +farther on a bevy of women and children were bathing in the tepid +waters of the river, while a man in an unpainted prau was keeping +watch for a possible crocodile. + +The sun was rising directly behind the peak, a ball of liquid fire. I +drew in a long draught of the warm morning air. + +A Malay in a soft silken sarong, which fell about his legs like a +woman's skirt, stood in the door. + +"The Prince is awaiting the Tuan Consul," he said, with a graceful +salaam. + +I hurriedly donned my suit of white, drank my tea, and followed him +along the grand salon, down a broad flight of steps, through a marble +court, and into the dining room. + +A great white punkah was lazily vibrating over the heavy rosewood +table. + +Unko Sulliman, the Prince Governor of Maur, came forward and gave me +his hand. + +"It will be a hard climb and a hard day's work?" he said, pleasantly, +in good English. + +"I have done worse," I answered. + +"But not under a Malayan sky. However, it is your wish, and his +Highness the Sultan has granted it. The Chief Justice will accompany +you, and now you had better start before the sun is high." + +I turned to the Tuan Hakim, or Chief Justice, with a gesture of +unconcealed pleasure. We had shot crocodiles the day previous along +the banks of the Maur, and I had found him a good shot and an agreeable +companion. While not as handsome a man or as striking a representative +of his race as the Unko, or Prince, he was a scholar, and could aid me +more than any one else in my exploration of the ancient gold workings +about the base of the famous mountain. + +The launch was awaiting us at the pier in front of the Residency, +and we took our places in the bow, and arranged our guns as our +half-naked crew worked her slowly into mid-stream. We hoped to get +some snap shots at the crocodiles that lined the banks as we steamed +swiftly up the river. + +"I am inclined to agree with Josephus, that yonder mountain is the +Mount Ophir of Solomon, when I look at this river. It is equal to +our Hudson, and could easily carry ships twice the size of any he or +Huram ever floated." + +The Tuan Hakim nodded, and kept his eyes fastened on the nearest shore. + +The course of the great river seemed to stretch out before us in an +endless line of majestic circles. From shore to shore, at high tide, +it was a mile in breadth, and so deep that his Highness's yacht, the +Pante, of three hundred tons' burden, could run up full fifty miles. + +For a moment we caught a view of the wooden minarets of the little +mosque at Bander Maharani; then we dashed on into the heart of another +great curve. + +"What is it your Koran says that the wise king's ships brought from +Ophir?" he asked, never taking his eyes off the mangrove-bound shore. + +"Gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks," I replied, quoting +literally from Chronicles. + +"Biak (good)! Gold and silver we have plenty. Your English companies +are taking it out of the land by the pikul In the old days, before the +Portuguese came, the handle of every warrior's kris was of ivory. Now +our elephants are dying before the rifle of the sportsman. Soon our +jungles will know them no more. Apes--" and he pointed at the top of +a giant marbow, where a troop of silver wah-wahs were swinging from +limb to limb. "The glorious argus pheasant you have seen." + +"Boyah, Tuan!" the man at the wheel sung out. + +I grasped my Winchester Express. Just ahead, half hidden by a black +labyrinth of scaffold-like mangrove roots, lay the huge, mud-covered +form of a crocodile. + +The Tuan Hakim raised his hand, and the launch slowed down and ran +in under the bank. + +"Now!" he whispered, and our rifles exploded in unison. + +A great splash of slimy red mud fell full on the front of my spotless +white jacket, another struck in the water close by the side of the +boat. The wounded crocodile had sprung into the air from his tail up, +and dropped back into his wallow with a resounding thud. In another +instant he was off the slippery bank and within the security of the +mud-colored water. + +I saw that my companion had more to tell me, possibly a native +tradition of the fabled riches that were concealed within the heart +of the historic mountain that was for the moment framed in a setting +of green, directly ahead. I put a fresh cartridge into the barrel, +and leaned back in my deck chair. + +The Chief Justice extracted a manila from his case and handed it to me. + +"In the days when Tunku Ali III. ruled over Maur, from Malacca to +the confines of Johore, the Portuguese came, and Albuquerque with +his ships of war and soldiers in iron armor sought to wrest from our +people their cities and their riches. My ancestor was a dato,--our +laksamana, high admiral, of his Highness's fleet. His galley was built +of burnished teak, the lining of its cabin was of sandalwood,--algum +wood your Koran calls it,--and the turret in its stern was covered +with plates of solid gold. You will find record of it to this day in +the state papers of Acheen. + +"For fully a hundred and forty years did the Emperor of Johore +and his valiant allies, the King of Acheen and the Sultan of Maur, +seek to retake Malacca from the Portuguese. The Dato Mamat was the +last laksamana of the fleet. With him died the war and the secret of +Mount Ophir." + +"The secret!" I questioned, as the Tuan Hakim paused. + +"For one hundred and forty years were we at war with the +invaders. Three generations were born and died with arms in their +hands. No work was done on the land, save by women and children. Still +we had plenty of gold with which to fit out fleet after fleet, with +which to arm our soldiers and feed our people. + +"It came from yonder mountain. Not even the Sultan knew its +hiding-place. That was only trusted to one family, and handed from +father to son by word of mouth. + +"Long before the days of Solomon the Wise did my family hold that +secret for the state. It was one of them that gave the four hundred +and twenty talents to the laksamana of Huram's fleet. Your Koran has +made record of the gift. He did not know from whence it came. He asked, +and we told him from the Ophirs, which means from the gold mines. Then +it was that he called the mountain that raised its head four thousand +feet above the sea, and was the first object his lookout saw as they +neared the coast, 'Mount Ophir.' + +"No man, however so bold, ventured within a radius of fifteen miles +around the foot of the mountain. It was haunted by evil spirits. No +man save the laksamana, who went twice a year and brought away to his +prau, which was moored on the bank of the Maur thirty miles from the +mountains, ten great loads of pure gold, each time over one hundred +bugels. I know not as to the truth, but it is told that there was +one tribe consecrated to the mining of the gold, not one of whom had +ever been outside the shadow of the mountain: that when the great +admiral ceased to come, they blocked up the entrance to the mines, +planted trees about the spot, and waited. One after another died, +until not one was left. + +"Such is the tradition of my family, Tuan." + +"But the great laksamana?" I asked. "I know of the ancient riches of +Malacca. Barbosa tells us that gold was so common that it was reckoned +by the bhar of four hundred weight." + +My companion contemplated the end of his manila. "Do you know how +died his Highness, Montezuma of Mexico, Tuan?" + +I bowed. + +"So died my ancestor one hundred years later. I will tell you of it, +that you may write his name in your histories by the side of the name +of the murdered Sultan of Mexico." + +The eyes of the little man flashed, and he looked squarely into mine +for the first time. Possibly he may have detected a smile on my face, +at the thought of placing this leader of a band of pirates side by +side in history with the once ruler of the richest empire in the New +World, for he paused in the midst of his narrative and said rapidly:-- + +"Must I tell you what your own writers tell of the rulers of our +country, to make you credit my tale? It is all here," he said, +pointing to his head. "Everything that relates to my home I know. King +Emmanuel of Portugal wrote to his High Kadi at Rome, that his general, +the cruel Albuquerque, had sailed to the Aurea Chersonese, called +by the natives Malacca, and found an enormous city of twenty-five +thousand houses, that abounded in spices, gold, pearls, and precious +stones. Was Montezuma's capital greater?" he triumphantly asked. + +"It was as great then as Singapore is today. Albuquerque captured it, +and built a fortress at the mouth of the river, making the walls +fifteen feet thick, all from the ruins of our mosques. This was +in 1513." + +"Forgive me," I said hastily, "if I have seemed to cast doubt on the +relative importance of your country." + +There was a Malay kampong, or village, to our right. Under the +heavy green and yellow fronds of a cocoanut grove were a half-dozen +picturesque palm-thatched houses. They were built up on posts six +feet from the ground, and a dozen men and children scampered down +their rickety ladders, as a shrill blast from our whistle aroused +them from their slumbers. Pressed against the wooden bars of their +low, narrow windows, we could make out the comely, brown faces +of the women. The punghulo, or chief, walked sedately out to the +beach, and touched his forehead to the ground as he recognized his +superior. The sunlight broke through the enwrapping cocoanuts, and +brought out dazzling white splotches on the sandy floor before the +houses. We passed a little space of wiry lallang grass, which was +waving in the faint breeze, and radiating long, irregular lines of +heat, that under our glasses resembled the marking of watered silk, +and were once more abreast the green walls of the impenetrable jungle. + +"The Dato Mamat captured a Portuguese ship within a man's voice from +the harbor of Malacca. On it was the foreign Governor's daughter. She +was dark, almost as dark as my people. Her eyes were black as night, +with long, drooping lashes, and her hair fell about her shapely neck, +a mass of waving curls. She was tall and stately, and her bearing was +haughty. The mighty Laksamana, who had fought a hundred battles, and +had a hundred wives picked from the princesses of the kingdom,--for +there were none so noble but felt honored in his smiles,--loved this +dark-skinned foreigner. It was pitiful! + +"His great fleet, which was to have swept the very name of the +Portuguese from the face of the earth, lay idle before the harbor. Its +captains were burning with ambition, but the Admiral would not give +the command, and they dare not disobey. + +"Day after day went by while the great man hung like a pariah dog +on the words of his haughty captive. She scorned his words of love, +laughed at his prayers, and sneered at his devotion. Day after day the +sun beat down on the burnished decks of the war praus. Night after +night the evening gun in the besieged fort sent forth its mocking +challenge: still the Dato made no motion. Oh, but it was pitiful! One +by one the praus slipped away,--first those from Acheen, and then +those from Johore,--but the valiant Laksamana saw them not. He was +blind to all save one. Then she spoke: 'If thou lovest me as thou +boastest, and would win my smiles, send me to my father; then go +and bring me of this gold of Ophir,--for the Dato had laid his heart +bare before her,--enough to sink yon boat. The daughter of a Braganza +does not unite herself with a pauper. When the moon is full again, +I will expect you.' + +"So did the Laksamana, to the everlasting shame of Islam. When the +moon was full he returned in his shining prau before the walls of +Malacca, He brought from Ophir, of gold more than enough; of the +pearls of Ceylon he brought a chupah full to the brim. He robbed +his great palace, that he might lay at the feet of the Portuguese a +fortune such as Solomon only ever saw. And yet the captains of his +fleet cared not for the gold, so long as the mighty Dato saved his +honor. When he left for the quay, on which stood the Governor, his +daughter, and the priests of their religion, they said not a word, +for he passed by with averted face; but each man grasped the jewelled +handle of his kris, and swore to Allah under his breath that should +but one hair of the mighty Admiral's head be lacking when he returned, +they would cut the false heart from the woman and feed it to the dogs. + +"So spoke the captains; but ere the breath had passed their lips their +chief was a prisoner, and the guns from the fort hurled defiance at +the betrayed. + +"It was pitiful! Allah was avenged. + +"Fiercely raged the battle, and when there was a breach in the walls, +and the captain besar had ordered the attack, the Portuguese held +the mighty Laksamana over the walls, and reviled the allied fleets +with words of derision. + +"Not one moved, and all was still. Suddenly the Admiral raised his +head, and gazed out and down at his followers. Then he spoke, and the +sound of his voice reached far out to the most distant prau that lay +becalmed within the shadow of casuarina-shaded Puli. + +"'Allah il Allah, I have sinned, and I must die. No more shall my +name be known in the land. I am no longer laksamana; neither am I a +dato. Allah is just. Tuan Allah Suka!' + +"A foreigner smote him in the mouth, and a great cry arose from +without the walls. + +"The war went on; but day after day did the Governor send a message +to the Laksamana in the dungeon. 'Reveal the spot where thy gold is +hidden, and thy life and liberty are granted.' + +"Day by day the Dato replied, 'My life is a pollution in the nostrils +of Allah. Take it.' + +"So they laid the great chief on the stones of his cell, bound hand +and foot, and one by one did they break the joints of his toes, +his fingers, and then the joints of his legs and arms. When they had +finished, and he still lived, the woman came to him and mocked him, +but the Admiral closed his eyes and prayed. 'O Allah, the all-merciful +and the loving kind, forgive me for my erring heart. Thou knowest that +it goes out to this woman still. Let not my country suffer for my +deeds. I gave unto thy servant Solomon of the gold that has made us +great. If thou canst, thou wilt whisper the secret of our nation to +one of thy chosen people, that they may have means whereby to fight +thy battles.' + +"And then the woman raised her hand, and with one stroke of the axe an +attendant severed from his body the head of the once mighty Laksamana +of the fleets of Johore, Acheen and Maur. + +"So died the secret of Ophir. So fell Malacca forever into the hands +of the foreigner." + +The Tuan Hakim's voice trembled as he closed. During the tragic recital +he had dropped into the soft, melodious chant of his nation. At times +he would lapse into Malay, and the boatmen would push forward and +listen with unconcealed excitement. Then, as he returned to English, +they would drop back into their places, but never take their eyes off +the face of the speaker. Only our China "boys" took no interest in +the past of Maur. It was tiffin time, and they were anxious to set +before us our lunch of rice curry, gula Malacca, whiskey and soda. + +The sun was directly above us, and the fierce, steely glare of the +Malayan sky and water dazzled our eyes. Mount Ophir looked as far +ahead as ever. The winding course of the river seemed at times to +take us directly away from it. + +Just as we had finished our meal, and had lighted our manilas, the +steersman turned the little launch sharply about, and headed directly +for the shore. In a moment we had shot under and through the deep +fringe of mangrove trees, and had emerged into the jungle. On all +sides the trees rose, columnar and straight, and the ground was firm, +although densely covered with ferns and vines. + +The launch stopped, and the chief turned to me. "Now for the climb. We +have thirty miles to the base of the mountain. We will push on ten +miles, and spend the night at a Malay village. The next day we will +try and reach the base of the mountain." + +I looked about me. We might have been surrounded by prison walls, +for all hope there seemed to be of our getting an inch into the jungle. + +Our servants gathered up our rather extensive impedimenta, and sprang +into the water. We were forced to follow suit, and begin our day's +march with wet feet. A few steps up the stream we came upon an old +elephant track and plunged boldly in,--and it was in! For three +miles we labored through a series of the most elaborate mud-holes +that I have ever seen. The elephants in breaking a path through the +jungle are extremely timid in their boldness. The second one always +steps in the footprints of the first. Year after year it is the same, +until in course of time the path is marked by a series of pitfalls, +often two feet in depth; and as it rains nearly every day they become +a seething, slimy paste of mud. + +Our heavy cloth shoes and stockings did not protect us from the +attacks of innumerable leeches; for when we at last reached an open +bit of forest and sat down to rest, we found dozens of them attached +to our legs and even on our bodies. They were small, and beautifully +marked with stripes of bright yellow. + +It was twilight when we neared the welcome kampong. We had sent a +runner ahead to notify the punghulo of our arrival, and as we finished +our struggle with the last thorny rattan, and tripped over the last +rubber-vine, we could hear the shouting of men and the barking of +dogs. Evidently we were expected. + +The kampong might have been any other in the kingdom, and the little +old weazened punghulo, who came bowing and smiling forward, might +have been at the head of any one of a hundred other kampongs,--they +were all so much alike. A half-dozen attap bungalows, built under a +cocoanut grove, all facing toward a central plaza; a score of dogs for +each bungalow; a flock of featherless fowls scratching and wallowing +beneath them, and a bevy of half-naked children playing with a rattan +ball within the light of a central fire,--made up the details of a +little picture of Malayan home life that had become very familiar to +me within the last three years. + +Our servants at once set about preparing supper before the fire, +while we for politeness' sake compounded a mouthful of betel-nut and +syrah leaf from the punghulo's state box. + +The next morning we set out for our twenty miles' tramp, along a narrow +jungle path, accompanied by some ten natives of the village whom my +companion had retained to cut a path for us up the mountain. It was a +long, tiresome journey, and we were heartily glad when it was ended, +and we were encamped on the rocky banks of a fern-hid stream. + +Twice during our day's march had we crossed deep, ragged depressions in +the earth, which were overgrown with a jungle that seemed to be coequal +in age with the surrounding trees. We did not pause to examine them, +although our natives pointed them out with the expressive word mas +(gold). We promised to do that at a later date. On the border of the +creek I found some gold-bearing rock, and while the Tuan Hakim was +engaged in securing some superb specimens of the great atlas moth, +I sat down and crushed some fragments of it, and obtained enough gold +to satisfy me that the rock would run four ounces to the ton. + +It was a beautiful night. We lay under our mosquito netting, and gazed +up through the interlacing branches of the trees at the star-strewn +sky, and smoked our manilas in weary content. The long, full "coo-ee" +of the stealthy argus pheasant sounded at intervals in distant parts +of the forest. It might have been the call of the orang-utan, or the +wild hillmen of the country, for they have imitated the call of this +most glorious of birds. + +The shrill, never ceasing whir of the cicada hardly attracted our +attention; while the whistle and crash of a monkey that was inspecting +us from his perch among the trees above caused me to peer upward, +in hopes of catching a glimpse of his grayish outlines. + +I had not had an opportunity of asking my companion for the details +of his tragic story. I turned to him, and found him watching me +attentively. "Were you listening to the call of the coo-ee?" he asked. + +"Yes," I answered. + +"It is the queen of birds. I will get you one. I have never shot +one. They only come out at night, and then only to disappear, but we +can trap them. It will die in captivity. That is why Solomon could +not keep them, and sent for new ones every three years." + +"What became of the woman?" I asked. + +"The body of the Laksamana was thrown over the walls by the +Portuguese," he said moodily. "It was embalmed and laid away. Two +months from that day the woman was walking outside the walls. The war +was over. There was no more gold. Three of my people sprang upon her +and the Portuguese she was to marry." He paused for a moment and looked +up at the stars, then went on in a cold, matter-of-fact tone. "They +were lashed to the headless body of the man they had murdered, and +thrown into the royal tiger-cage, by order of his Highness, Ali, +Sultan of Maur." + +I raised my curtain and threw the stub of my cigar out into the +darkness, a smothered exclamation of horror escaping my lips. + +"It was the will of Allah. Good night." + +It was nearly nine o'clock the next morning before we started. Our +Malays had gone on at daybreak, to cut a path up the base of the +mountain to where the open forest began. + +We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles, keeping +the ravine on our left. It was comparatively easy work after we had +left the jungle behind. After crossing a level plateau we once more +found ourselves in a forest so dense that our men had to use their +parangs again. The heat of the jungle was intense, and we suffered +severely from the stings of a fly that is not unlike a cicada in shape. + +From the jungle we emerged into an immense stone field,--padang-batu, +the Malays called it. It extended along the mountain side as far +as we could see, in places quite bare, at others deeply fissured +and covered with a most luxuriant vegetation. We tramped at times +waist deep through ferns, some green, some dark red, and some lined +with yellow, clumps of the splendid Dipteris Horsfieldi and Matonia +pectinala, with their slender stems and wide-spreading palmate fronds +towering two feet above our heads. The delicate maidenhair lay like a +rich carpet beneath our feet, while hundreds of magnificent climbing +pitcher-plants doused us with water as we knocked against them. Our +sympiesometer showed us that we were twenty-eight hundred feet above +the sea. + +Beyond the padang-batu we entered a forest of almost Alpine character, +dwarfed and stunted. For several hours we worked along ridges, +descended into valleys, and ascended almost precipitous ledges, until +we finally reached a peak that was separated from the true mountain +by a deep, forbidding canon. + +Several of the older men of the party gave out, and we were forced +to leave them with half our baggage and what water was left: there +was a spring, they told us, near the summit. + +The scramble down the one side of the canon, and up the other, was a +hard hour's work. Its rocky, almost perpendicular sides were covered +with a bushy vegetation on top of a foundation of mosses and dead +leaves, so that it afforded us more hindrance than help. + +Just below the summit we came to where a projecting rock gave us +shelter, and a natural basin contained flowing water. Dropping my load, +and hardly waiting to catch my breath, I was on my way up the fifty +feet that lay between us and the top. In another moment I had mounted +the small, rocky, rhododendron-covered platform, and stood, the first +of my party, on the summit of Mount Ophir. The little American flag +that I had brought with me I waved frantically above my head, much +to the amusement of my attendants. + +Four thousand feet below, to the east, stretched the silver sheen of +the Indian Ocean. The smoke of a passing steamer lay like a dark stain +on the blue and white of the sky. Close into the shore was the little +capital town of Bander Maharani, connecting itself with us by a long, +snake-like ribbon of shimmering light,--the great river Maur. + +To the north and west successive ranges of hill and valley, divided +by the glistening river, and all covered by an interminable jungle +of vivid green, fell away until lost in the cloudless horizon. + +For a moment I stood and gazed out over the vast expanse that lay +before me, my mind filled with the wild, unwritten poetry of its +jungles and its people; then I turned to my companion. + +"It is beautiful!" + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"But not equal to the view from our own Mount Washington." + +"Then why take so much trouble to secure it? Mount Pulei is as high, +and there is a good road to its top." + +I laughed. "Mount Pulei or Mount Washington is not Ophir." + +"True!" he answered, opening his eyes in surprise at the seeming +absurdity of my statement. "He that told you they were speaketh a lie." + +We spent the night on the summit, and watched the sun drop into the +midst of the sea, away to the west. It was cool and delightful after +the moist, heat-laden atmosphere of the lowlands, and a strong breeze +freed us from the swarm of tiger mosquitoes that we had learned to +expect as the darkness came on. + +Where the Ophir of the Bible really is, will ever be a question of +doubt. To my mind it embraces the entire East--the Malay Peninsula, +Ceylon, India, and even China,--Ophir being merely a comprehensive +term, possibly taken from this Mount Ophir of Johore, which +signified the most central point of the region to which Solomon's +ships sailed. For all ages the gold of the Malay Peninsula has been +known; from the earliest times there has been intercourse between the +Arabians and the Malays, while the Malayan was the very first of the +far Eastern countries to adopt the Mohammedan religion and customs. + +All the articles mentioned in the Biblical account of Mount Ophir +are found in and about Malacca in abundance, while on the coast of +Africa two of them, peacocks and silver, are missing. + +If the Hebrew word thukyim is translated peacocks, and not parrots, +then Solomon's ships must have turned east after passing the Straits +of Bab-el-Mandeb, and not south along the coast of Africa toward +Sofala. For peacocks are only found in India and Malaya. + +It is a singular fact that in the language of the Orang Bennu, or +aborigines of the Malay Peninsula, that word "peacocks," which in the +modern Malay is marrak, is in the aboriginal chim marak, which is the +exact termination of the Hebrew tuchim. Their word for bird is tchem, +another surprising similarity. + +The morning sun brought us to our feet long before it was light in +the vast spaces beneath our eyes. The jungle held its reddening rays +for a moment; they flamed along the course of a half-hidden river; +we stood out clear and distinct in their glorious effulgence, and +then the broken, denuded crags and ragged ravines of the padang-batu +absorbed them in its black fastnesses. + +The gold of Mount Ophir was all about us. The air, the stones, the +very trees, seemed to have been transformed into the glorious metal +that the little fleets of Solomon and Huram sailed so far to seek. The +Aurea Chersonese was a breathing, pulsating reality. + + + + + +BUSUK + +The Story of a Malayan Girlhood + + +They called her Busuk, or "the youngest" at her birth. Her father, +the old punghulo, or chief, of the little kampong, or village, of +Passir Panjang, whispered the soft Allah Akbar, the prayer to Allah, +in her small brown ear. + +The subjects of the punghulo brought presents of sarongs run with gold +thread, and not larger than a handkerchief, for Busuk to wear about +her waist. They also brought gifts of rice in baskets of cunningly +woven cocoanut fibre; of bananas, a hundred on a bunch; of durians, +that filled the bungalow with so strong an odor that Busuk drew up +her wrinkled, tiny face into a quaint frown; and of cocoanuts in +their great green, oval shucks. + +Busuk's old aunt, who lived far away up the river Maur, near the foot +of Mount Ophir, sent a yellow gold pin for the hair; her husband, +the Hadji Mat, had washed the gold from the bed of the stream that +rushed by their bungalow. + +Busuk's brother, who was a sergeant in his Highness's the Sultan's +artillery at Johore, brought a tiny pair of sandals all worked in +many-colored beads. Never had such presents been seen at the birth +of any other of Punghulo Sahak's children. + +Two days later the Imam Paduka Tuan sent Busuk's father a letter +sewn up in a yellow bag. It contained a blessing for Busuk. Busuk +kept the letter all her life, for it was a great thing for the high +priest to do. + + + +On the seventh day Busuk's head was shaven and she was named Fatima; +but they called her Busuk in the kampong, and some even called her +Inchi Busuk, the princess. + +From the low-barred window of Busuk's home she could look out on the +shimmering, sunlit waters of the Straits of Malacca. The loom on which +Busuk's mother wove the sarongs for the punghulo and for her sons +stood by the side of the window, and Busuk, from the sling in which +she sat on her mother's side, could see the fishing praus glide by, +and also the big lumber tonkangs, and at rare intervals one of his +Highness's launches. + +Sometimes she blinked her eyes as a vagrant shaft of sunlight straggled +down through the great green and yellow fronds of the cocoanut palms +that stood about the bungalow; sometimes she kept her little black +eyes fixed gravely on the flying shuttle which her mother threw deftly +back and forth through the many-colored threads; but best of all did +she love to watch the little gray lizards that ran about on the palm +sides of the house after the flies and moths. + +She was soon able to answer the lizards' call of "gecho, gecho," and +once she laughed outright when one, in fright of her baby-fingers, +dropped its tail and went wiggling away like a boat without a +rudder. But most of the time she swung and crowed in her wicker cradle +under the low rafters. + +When Busuk grew older, she was carried every day down the ladder of the +house and put on the warm white sand with the other children. They were +all naked, save for a little chintz bib that was tied to their necks; +so it made no difference how many mudpies they made on the beach nor +how wet they got in the tepid waters of the ocean. They had only to +look out carefully for the crocodiles that glided noiselessly among +the mangrove roots. + +One day one of Busuk's playmates was caught in the cruel jaws of +a crocodile, and lost its hand. The men from the village went out +into the labyrinth of roots that stood up above the flood like a +huge scaffolding, and caught the man-eater with ropes of the gamooty +palm. They dragged it up the beach and put out its eyes with red-hot +spikes of the hard billion wood. + +Although the varnished leaves of the cocoanuts kept almost every ray +of sunlight out of the little village, and though the children could +play in the airy spaces under their own houses, their heads and faces +were painted with a paste of flour and water to keep their tender +skins from chafing in the hot, moist air. + + + +At evening, when the fierce sun went down behind the great banian +tree that nearly hid Mount Pulei, the kateeb would sound the call to +prayer on a hollow log that hung up before the little palm-thatched +mosque. Then Busuk and her playmates would fall on their faces, +while the holy man sang in a soft, monotonous voice the promises +of the Koran, the men of the kampong answering. "Allah il Allah," +he would sing, and "Mohammed is his prophet," they would answer. + +Every night Busuk would lie down on a mat on the floor of the house +with a little wooden pillow under her neck, and when she dared she +would peep down through the open spaces in the bamboo floor into +the darkness beneath. Once she heard a low growl, and a great dark +form stood right below her. She could see its tail lashing its sides +with short, whip-like movements. Then all the dogs in the kampong +began to bark, and the men rushed down their ladders screaming, +"Harimau! Harimau!" (A tiger! A tiger!) The next morning she found +that her pet dog, Fatima, named after herself, had been killed by one +stroke of the great beast's paw. Once a monster python swung from a +cocoanut tree through the window of her home, and wound itself round +and round the post of her mother's loom. It took a dozen men to tie +a rope to the serpent's tail, and pull it out. + + + +Busuk went everywhere astride the punghulo's broad shoulders as he +collected the taxes and settled the disputes in the little village. She +went out into the straits in the big prau that floated the star and +crescent of Johore over its stern, to look at the fishing-stakes, +and was nearly wrecked by a great water-spout that burst within a +few feet of them. + +Then she went twice to Johore, and gazed in open-eyed wonder at +the palaces of the Sultan and at the fort in which her uncle was +an officer. + +"Some day," she thought, "I may see his Highness, and he may notice me +and smile." For had not his Highness spoken twice to her father and +called him a good man? So whenever she went to Johore she put on her +best sarong and kabaya> and in her jetty black hair she put the pin +her aunt had given her, with a spray of sweet-smelling chumpaka flower. + +When she was four years old she went to the penager to learn to read +and write. In a few months she could outstrip any one in the class +in tracing Arabic characters on the sand-sprinkled floor, and she +knew whole chapters in the Koran. + +So the days were passed in the little kampong under the gently swaying +cocoanuts, and the little Malayan girl grew up like her companions, +free and wild, with little thought beyond the morrow. That some day +she was to be married, she knew; for since her first birthday she had +been engaged to Mamat, the son of her father's friend, the punghulo +of Bander Bahru. + +She had never seen Mamat, nor he her; for it was not proper that a +Malay should see his intended before marriage. She had heard that +he was strong and lithe of limb, and could beat all his fellows at +the game called ragga. When the wicker ball was in the air he never +let it touch the ground; for he was as quick with his head and feet, +shoulders, hips, and breast, as with his hands. He could swim and box, +and had once gone with his father to the seaports on New Year's Day +at Singapore, and his own prau had won the short-distance race. + +Mamat was three years older than Busuk, and they were to be married +when she was fifteen. + +At first she cried a little, for she was sad at the thought of giving +up her playmates. But then the older women told her that she could +chew betel when she was married, and her mother showed her a little +set of betel-nut boxes, for which she had sent to Singapore. Each cup +was of silver, and the box was cunningly inlaid with storks and cherry +blossoms. It had cost her mother a month's hard labor on the loom. + +Then Mamat was not to take her back to his father's bungalow. He +had built a little one of his own, raised up on palm posts six feet +from the ground, so that she need not fear tigers or snakes or white +ants. Its sides were of plaited palm leaves, every other one colored +differently, and its roof was of the choicest attap, each leaf bent +carefully over a rod of rattan, and stitched so evenly that not a +drop of rain could get through. + +Inside there was a room especially for her, with its sides hung +with sarongs, and by the window was a loom made of kamooning wood, +finer than her mother's. Outside, under the eaves, was a house of +bent rattan for her ring-doves, and a shelf where her silver-haired +monkey could sun himself. + +So Busuk forgot her grief, and she watched with ill-concealed eagerness +the coming of Mamat's friends with presents of tobacco and rice and +bone-tipped krises. Then for the first time she was permitted to open +the camphor-wood chest and gaze upon all the beautiful things that +she was to wear for the one great day. + +Her mother and elder sisters had been married in them, and their +children would, one after another, be married in them after her. + +There was a sarong of silk, run with threads of gold and silver, that +was large enough to go around her body twice and wide enough to hang +from her waist to her ankles; a belt of silver, with a gold plate +in front, to hold the sarong in place; a kabaya, or outer garment, +that looked like a dressing-gown, and was fastened down the front with +golden brooches of curious Malayan workmanship; a pair of red-tipped +sandals; and a black lace scarf to wear about her black hair. There +were earrings and a necklace of colored glass, and armlets, bangles, +and gold pins. They all dazzled Busuk, and she could hardly wait to +try them on. + + + +A buffalo was sacrificed on the day of the ceremony. The animal was +"without blemish or disease." The men were careful not to break its +fore or hind leg or its spine, after death, for such was the law. Its +legs were bound and its head was fastened, and water was poured upon +it while the kadi prayed. Then he divided its windpipe. When it was +cooked, one half of it was given to the priests and the other half +to the people. + +All the guests, and there were many, brought offerings of cooked rice +in the fresh green leaves of the plantain, and baskets of delicious +mangosteens, and pink mangoes and great jack-fruits. A curry was made +from the rice that had forty sambuls to mix with it. There were the +pods of the moringa tree, chilies and capsicums, prawns and decayed +fish, chutneys and onions, ducks' eggs and fish roes, peppers and +cucumbers and grated cocoanuts. + +It was a wonderful curry, made by one of the Sultan's own cooks; +for the Punghulo Sahak spared no expense in the marriage of this, +his last daughter, and a great feast is exceedingly honorable in the +eyes of the guests. + +Busuk's long black hair had to be done up in a marvellous chignon on +the top of her head. First, her maids washed it beautifully clean +with the juice of the lime and the lather of the soap-nut; then it +was combed and brushed until every hair glistened like ebony; next it +was twisted up and stuck full of the quaint golden and tortoise-shell +bodkins, with here and there a spray of jasmine and chumpaka. + +Busuk's milky-white teeth had to be filed off more than a fourth. She +put her head down on the lap of the woman and closed her eyes tight +to keep back the hot tears that would fall, but after the pain was +over and her teeth were blackened, she looked in the mirror at her +swollen gums and thought that she was very beautiful. Now she could +chew the betel-nut from the box her mother had given her! + +The palms of her hands and the nails of her fingers and toes were +painted red with henna, and the lids of her eyes touched up with +antimony. When all was finished, they led her out into the great room, +which was decorated with mats of colored palm, masses of sweet-smelling +flowers and maidenhair fern. There they placed her in the chair of +state to receive her relatives and friends. + + + +She trembled a little for fear Mamat would not think her beautiful, +but when, last of all, he came up and smiled and claimed the bit of +betel-nut that she was chewing for the first time, and placed it in +his mouth, she smiled back and was very happy. + +Then the kadi pronounced them man and wife in the presence of all, +for is it not written, "Written deeds may be forged, destroyed, or +altered; but the memory of what is transacted in the presence of a +thousand witnesses must remain sacred? Allah il Allah!" And all the +people answered, "Suka! Suka!" (We wish it! We wish it!) + +Then Mamat took his seat on the dais beside the bride, and the punghulo +passed about the betel-box. First, Busuk took out a syrah leaf smeared +with lime and placed in it some broken fragments of the betel-nut, +and chewed it until a bright red liquid oozed from the corners of +her mouth. The others did the same. + +Then the women brought garlands of flowers--red allamandas, yellow +convolvulus, and pink hibiscus--and hung them about Busuk and Mamat, +while the musicians outside beat their crocodile-hide drums in +frantic haste. + +The great feast began out in the sandy plaza before the houses. There +was cock-fighting and kicking the ragga ball, wrestling and boxing, +and some gambling among the elders. + +Toward night Busuk was put in a rattan chair and carried by the +young men, while Mamat and the girls walked by her side, a mile away, +where her husband's big cadjang-covered prau lay moored. It was to +take them to his bungalow at Bander Bahru. The band went, too, and +the boys shot off guns and fire-crackers all the way, until Busuk's +head swam, and she was so happy that the tears came into her eyes +and trickled down through the rouge on her cheeks. + +So ended Busuk's childhood. She was not quite fifteen when she became +mistress of her own little palm-thatched home. But it was not play +housekeeping with her; for she must weave the sarongs for Mamat and +herself for clothes and for spreads at night, and the weaving of +each cost her twenty days' hard labor. If she could weave an extra +one from time to time, Mamat would take it up to Singapore and trade +it at the bazaar for a pin for the hair or a sunshade with a white +fringe about it. + +Then there were the shell-fish and prawns on the sea-shore to be +found, greens to be sought out in the jungle, and the padi, or rice, +to be weeded. She must keep a plentiful supply of betel-nut and lemon +leaves for Mamat and herself, and one day there was a little boy to +look after and make tiny sarongs for. + + + +So, long before the time that our American girls are out of school, and +about the time they are putting on long dresses, Busuk was a woman. Her +shoulders were bent, her face wrinkled, her teeth decayed and falling +out from the use of the syrah leaf. She had settled the engagement +of her oldest boy to a little girl of two years in a neighboring +kampong, and was dusting out the things in the camphor-wood chest, +preparatory to the great occasion. + +I used to wonder, as I wandered through one of these secluded little +Malay villages that line the shores of the peninsula and are scattered +over its interior, if the little girl mothers who were carrying water +and weaving mats did not sometimes long to get down on the warm, white +sands and have a regular romp among themselves,--playing "Cat-a-corner" +or "I spy"; for none of them were over seventeen or eighteen! + +Still their lives are not unhappy. Their husbands are kind and sober, +and they are never destitute. They have their families about them, +and hear laughter and merriment from one sunny year to another. + +Busuk's father-in-law is dead now, and the last time I visited Bander +Bahru to shoot wild pig, Mamat was punghulo, collecting the taxes +and administering the laws. + +He raised the back of his open palm to his forehead with a quiet +dignity when I left, after the day's sport, and said, "Tabek! Tuan +Consul. Do not forget Mamat's humble bungalow." And Busuk came down the +ladder with little Mamat astride her bare shoulders, with a pleasant +"Tabek! Tuan! (Good-by, my lord.) May Allah's smile be ever with you." + + + + + +A CROCODILE HUNT + +At the foot of Mount Ophir + + +The little pleasant-faced Malay captain of his Highness's three-hundred +ton yacht Pante called softly, close to my ear, "Tuan--Tuan Consul, +Gunong Ladang!" I sprang to my feet, rubbed my eyes, and gazed in +the direction indicated by the brown hand. + +I saw not five miles off the low jungle-bound coast of the peninsula, +and above it a great bank of vaporous clouds, pierced by the molten +rays of the early morning sun. As I looked around inquiringly, the +captain, bowing, said: "Tuan," and I raised my eyes. Again I saw the +lofty mountain peak surmounting the cushion of clouds, standing out +bold and clear against the almost fierce azure of the Malayan sky. + +"Mount Ophir!" burst from my lips. The captain smiled and went +forward to listen to the linesman's "two fathoms, sir, two and one +half fathoms, sir, two fathoms, sir"; for we were crossing the shallow +bar that protects the mouth of the great river Maur from the ocean. + +The tide was running out like a mill-race. The Pante was backing from +side to side, and then pushing carefully ahead, trying to get into +the deep water beyond, before low tide. + +Suddenly there was a soft, grating sound and the captain came to me +and touched his hat. + +"We are on the bar, sir. Will you send a despatch by the steam-cutter +to Prince Suliman, asking for the launch? We cannot get off until +the night tide." + +The Pante had so swung around that we could plainly see the big +red istana, or palace, of Prince Suliman close to the sandy shore, +surrounded by a grove of graceful palms. With the aid of our glasses +the white and red blur farther up the river resolved itself into the +streets and quays of the little city of Bander Maharani, the capital +of the province of Maur in dominions of his Highness Abubaker, Sultan +of Johore. Above and overshadowing all both in beauty and historical +interest was the famous old mountain where King Solomon sent his +diminutive ships for "gold, silver, peacocks, and apes." + +By the time the ladies were astir, the mists had vanished and Gunong +Ladang, or as it is styled in Holy Writ Mount Ophir, presented to +our admiring gaze its massive outlines, set in a frame of green and +blue. The dense jungle crept halfway up its sides and at the point +where the cloud stratum had rested but an hour before, it merged into +a tangled network of vines and shrubs which in their turn gave place +to the black, red rock that shone like burnished brass. + +If our minds wandered away from visions of future crocodile-shooting +to dreams of the past wealth that had been taken from the ancient +mines that honeycombed the base of the mountain, it is hardly to +be wondered at. If Dato or "Lord" Garlands told us queer stories of +woods and masonry that antedated the written history of the country, +stories of mines and workings that were overgrown with a jungle that +looked as primeval as the mountain itself, he was to be excused on +the plea that we, waiting on a sandy bar with the metallic glare of +the sea in our eyes, were glad of any subject to distract our thoughts. + +The Resident's launch brought out Prince Mat and the Chief Justice, +both of whom spoke English with an easy familiarity. Both had been in +Europe and Prince Mat had dined with Queen Victoria. One night at table +he related the incidents of that dinner with a delightful exactness +that might have pleased her Britannic Majesty could she have listened. + +I waited only long enough to see the ladies installed in a suite of +rooms in the Residency, then donned a suit of white duck, stepped +into a river launch in company with Inchi Mohamed, the Chief Justice, +and steamed out into the broad waters of the Maur. + +The southernmost kingdom of the great continent of Asia is the little +Sultanate of Johore, ruled over by one of the most enlightened Princes +of the East. Fourteen miles from Singapore, just across the notorious +old Straits of Malacca, is his capital and the palace of the Sultan. + +We had been guests of the State for the past two weeks. Its ruler, +among other kind attentions to us, had suggested a visit to his out +province Maur and a crocodile hunt along the banks of the broad river +that wound about the foot of Mount Ophir. + +Fifteen hours' steam in his beautiful yacht along the picturesque +shores of Johore brought us to the realization of a long-cherished +dream,--the seeing for ourselves the mountain whose exact location +had been a subject of conjecture for so many centuries. Were I a +scholar and explorer and not a sportsman, I might again and more +explicitly set forth facts which I consider indubitable proof that +the Mount Ophir of Asia and not the Mount Ophir of Africa is, as I +have already claimed, the Mount Ophir of the Bible. But here, I wish +only to narrate the record of a few pleasant days spent at its foot. + +The Maur River, at its mouth, is a mile across; it is so deep that one +can run close up to its muddy banks and peer in under the labyrinth of +mangrove roots that stand like a rustic scaffold beneath its trunks, +protecting them from the highest flood-tides. + +It was some time before I could pick out a crocodile as he lay +sleeping in his muddy bath, showing nothing above the slime except +the serrated line of his great back, which was so incrusted that, +but for its regularity, it might pass for the limb of a tree or some +fantastically shaped root. + +"There you are!" said the Chief Justice, pointing at the bank almost +before we had reached the opposite side. I strained my eyes and raised +the hammer of my "50 x 110" Winchester; for I was to have a shot at +my first live crocodile. + +We drew nearer and nearer the shore and yet I failed to see anything +that resembled an animal of any sort. The little launch slowed down +and the crew all pointed toward the bank. I cannot now imagine what +I expected then to see, but something must have been in my mind's +eye that blinded my bodily sight; for there, right before me, was a +little fellow not over three feet long. + +He had just come up from the river, and his hide was clean and +almost a dark birch color. His head was raised and he was regarding +us suspiciously from his small green eyes. + +I put down my rifle in disgust, and took up my revolver. I had no +idea of wasting a hundred and ten grains of powder on a baby. I took +careful aim and fired. The revolver was a self-cocker, and yet before +I could fire again, he had whirled about and was out of reach. He was +gone and I drew a long breath. The Malays said I struck him. If I did, +I had no means of proving it. + +The only way to bag crocodiles is to kill them outright or nearly +so. If they have strength enough to crawl into the river and die, +they will come to the surface again two days later; but the chances +are that they will get under a root, or that in some way you will +lose them. Out of forty or fifty big and small ones that we hit only +five floated down past the Residency. + +I also soon found out that my hundred and ten grain cartridges were +none too large for even the smaller crocodiles. As for those eighteen +and twenty feet long, it was necessary that the Chief Justice and I +should fire at the same time and at the same spot in order to arrest +the big saurians in their wild scramble for the water. + +We had tried some half-dozen good shots at small fellows, varying from +two to five feet in length, when I began to lose interest in the sport; +so I turned to watch a colony of little gray, jungle monkeys, that +were swinging and chattering and scolding among the mangrove trees. + +One of them picked a long dart-shaped fruit off the tree and essayed +to drop it on the head of his mate below. I was about to call my +companion's attention to it, when I heard a crash among the roots +near where the missile had fallen, and a crocodile, so large that I +distrusted my senses, turned his great log-like head to one side and +gazed up at the frightened monkeys. I raised my hand, and the launch +paused not over twenty yards from where he lay patiently waiting for +one of the monkeys to drop within reach of his great jaws. + +The sun had dried the mud on his back until the entire surface reminded +me of the beach of a muddy mill-pond that I used to frequent as a boy. + +"Boyah besar!" (A royal crocodile) repeated our Malays under their +breaths. + +The Chief Justice and I fired at the same time, and the massive fellow +who, but a moment before, had looked to be as stiff and clumsy as +a bar of pig iron, now seemed to be made of india-rubber and steel +springs. I should not have been more surprised had the great timboso +tree, beside which he lay, arisen and danced a jig. He seemed to +spring from the middle up into the air without the aid of either +his head or his tail. Then he brought his tail around in a circle +and struck the skeleton roots of the mangrove with such force as to +dislodge a small monkey in its top, which fell whistling with fright +into the lower limbs, while the crocodile's great jaws, which seemed +to measure a third of his length, opened and shut viciously, snapping +off limbs and roots like straws. + +"He sick!" shouted the Chief Justice. "Fire quick." + +I threw the cartridge from the magazine into the barrel, and raised +the gun to my shoulder just as the huge saurian struck the water. My +bullet caught him underneath, near the back legs. My companion's must +have had more effect, for the crocodile stopped as though stunned. I +had time to drop my gun and snatch up my revolver. + +It was an easy shot. The bullet sped true to its mark and entered one +of the small fiery eyes. The huge frame seemed to quiver as though +a charge of electricity had gone through it and then stiffened +out,--dead. + +Our Malay boys got a rope of tough gamooty fibres around the great +head, and we towed our prize out into the stream just as the Resident's +launch, bearing the Prince and the ladies, steamed up the river to +watch the sport. + +A crowd of servants got the crocodile up on the bank near the palace +grounds and drew it two hundred yards to their quarters. Now comes +the strangest part of the story. + +My servants had half completed the task of skinning him, for I wished +to send his hide to the Smithsonian, when the muezzin sounded the call +to prayers from the little mosque near by. In an instant the devout +Mohammedans were on their faces and the crocodile in his half-skinned +state was left until a more convenient time. At six o'clock the next +morning I was awakened by a knock at my door:-- + +"Tuan, Tuan Consul, come see boyah (crocodile)." + +I got up, wrapped a sarong about me, put my feet into a pair of grass +slippers, and followed my guide out of the palace, through the courts +to where the crocodile had been the night before, but no crocodile +was to be seen. My guide grinned and pointed to a heavy trail that +looked like the track of a stone-boat drawn by a yoke of oxen. + +We followed it for a hundred yards in the direction of the river, +and came upon the crocodile, covered with blood and mud. His own +hide hung about him like a dress, and his one eye opened and shut at +the throng of wondering natives about. It was not until he had been +put out of his misery and his hide taken entirely off that we felt +confident of his bona fide demise. + +One day I had a real adventure while out shooting, which, like many +real adventures, was made up principally of the things I thought and +suffered rather than of the things I did. Hence I hardly know how +to write it out so that it will look like an "adventure" and not a +mere mishap. + +My companion had told me of a trail some thirty miles up the river that +led into the jungle about three miles, to some old gold workings that +date back beyond the written records of the State. So one day we drew +our little launch close up under the bank of the river, and I sprang +ashore, bent on seeing for myself the prehistoric remains. Contrary +to the advice of the Chief Justice, I only took a heavy hunting-knife +with me, and it was more for slashing away thorns and rattans than +for protection. + +It was the heat of the day, and the dense jungle was like a +furnace. Before I had gone a mile I began to regret my enthusiasm. I +found the path, but it was so overgrown with creepers, parasites, +and rubber-vines that I had almost to cut a new one. Had it not been +for the company of a small English terrier, Lekas,--the Malay for +"make haste,"--I believe I should have turned back. + +However, I found the old workings, and spent several hours making +calculations as to their depth and course, taking notes as to the +country formation, and assaying some bits of refuse quartz. Rather +than struggle back by the path, I determined to follow the course of +a stream that went through the mines and on toward the coast. So I +whistled for Lekas and started on. + +For the first half-hour everything went smoothly. Then the stream +widened out and its clay bottom gave place to one of mud, which made +the walking much more difficult. At last I struck the mangrove belt, +which always warns you that you are approaching the coast. + +As long as I kept in the centre of the channel, I was out of the way +of the network of roots; but now the channel was getting deeper and my +progress becoming more labored. It was impossible to reach the bank, +for the mangroves on either side had grown so thick and dense as to +be impenetrable. + +When I had perhaps achieved half the distance, the thought suddenly +crossed my mind--how very awkward it would be to meet a crocodile in +such a place! One couldn't run, that was certain, and as for fighting, +that would be a lost cause from the first. + +Right in the midst of these unpleasant cogitations I heard a quiet +splash in the water, not far behind, that sent my heart into my +mouth. In a moment I had scrambled on to a mangrove root and had +turned to look for the cause of my fears. + +For perhaps a minute I saw nothing, and was trying to convince myself +that my previous thoughts had made me fanciful, when, not many yards +off, I saw distinctly the form of a huge crocodile swimming rapidly +toward me. I needed no second look, but dashed away over the roots. + +Before I had gone half a dozen yards I was down sprawling in the +mud. I got entangled, and my terror made me totally unable to act +with any judgment. Despair nerved me and I turned at bay with my long +hunting-knife in my hand. How I longed for even my revolver! + +Whatever the issue, it could not be long delayed. The uncouth, +hideous form, which as yet I had only seen dimly, was plain now. I +took my stand on one of the largest roots, steadied myself by clasping +another with my left hand, and waited. + +My chances, if it did not seem a mockery to call them such, were small +indeed. I might, by singular good luck, deprive my adversary of sight; +but hemmed in as I was by a tangled mass of roots, I felt that even +then I should be but little better off. + +All manner of thoughts came unbidden to my mind. I could see Inchi +Mohamed propped up on cushions in the launch reading "A Little Book of +Profitable Tales" that had just been sent me by its author. I started +to smile at the tale of The Clycopeedy. Then I caught sight of the +peak of Mount Ophir through a notch in the jungle and all sorts of +absurd hypotheses in regard to its authenticity flashed through my +mind. All this takes time to relate, but those who have stood in +mortal peril will know how short a time it takes to think. + +From the moment I left the water, but a few seconds had elapsed and the +saurian was not two yards from me. The abject horror and hopelessness +of that moment was something I can never forget. Suddenly Lekas came +floundering through the mud; a second more, and he perceived my enemy +when almost within reach of his jaws. + +Barking furiously, Lekas began to back away. One breathless moment, +and the reptile turned to follow this new prey. I sank down among +the roots regardless of the slime and watched the crocodile crawl +deliberately away, with the gallant little dog retreating before him, +keeping up a succession of angry barks. + +When I arrived at the mouth of the creek, weak, faint, and covered +from head to foot with mud, I found the Chief Justice awaiting me. The +barking of the dog had attracted his attention and he had steamed up +to see what was the matter. + +I had not strength left to stroke the head of the brave little fellow +who had thus twice done me a most welcome service. I had, indeed, but +just strength enough to spring in, throw myself down on the cushions, +and let my "boys" pull off my clothes and bring me a suit of clean +pajamas and cool grass slippers. + + + + + +A NEW YEAR'S DAY IN MALAYA + +And some of its Picturesque Customs + + +My Malay syce came close up to the veranda and touched his brown +forehead with the back of his open hand. + +"Tuan" (Lord), he said, "have got oil for harness, two one-half +cents; black oil for cudah's (horse) feet, three cents; oil, one cent +one-half for bits; oil, seven cents for cretah (carriage). Fourteen +cents, Tuan." + +I put my hands into the pockets of my white duck jacket and drew out +a roll of big Borneo coppers. + +The syce counted out the desired amount, and handed back what was left +through the bamboo chicks, or curtains, that reduced the blinding +glare of the sky to a soft, translucent gray. I closed my eyes and +stretched back in my long chair, wondering vaguely at the occasion +that called for such an outlay in oils, when I heard once more the +quiet, insistent "Tuan!" I opened my eyes. + +"No got red, white, blue ribbon for whip." + +"Sudah chukup!" (Stop talking) I commanded angrily. The syce shrugged +his bare shoulders and gave a hitch to his cotton sarong. + +"Tuan, to-morrow New Year Day. Tuan, mem (lady) drive to +Esplanade. Governor, general, all white tuans and mems there. Tuan +Consul's carriage not nice. Shall syce buy ribbons?" + +"Yes," I answered, tossing him the rest of the coppers, "and get a +new one for your arm." + +I had forgotten for the moment that it was the 31st of December. The +syce touched his hand to his forehead and salaamed. + +Through the spaces of the protecting chicks I caught glimpses of +my Malay kebun, or gardener, squatting on his bare feet, with his +bare knees drawn up under his armpits, hacking with a heavy knife at +the short grass. The mottled crotons, the yellow allamanda and pink +hibiscus bushes, the clump of Eucharist lilies, the great trailing +masses of orchids that hung among the red flowers of the stately +flamboyant tree by the green hedge, joined to make me forget the +midwinter date on the calendar. The time seemed in my half-dream July +in New York or August in Washington. + +Ah Minga, the "boy" in flowing pantalets and stiffly starched blouse, +came silently along the wide veranda, with a cup of tea and a plate +of opened mangosteens. I roused myself, and the dreams of sleighbells +and ice on window-panes, that had been fleeting through my mind at +the first mention of New Year's Day by the syce, vanished. + +Ah Minga, too, mentioned, as he placed the cool, pellucid globes +before me, "To-mollow New Year Dlay, Tuan!" + +On Christmas Day, Ah Minga had presented the mistress with the gilded +counterfeit presentment of a Joss. The servants, one and all, from Zim, +the cookee, to the wretched Kling dhobie (wash-man), had brought some +little remembrance of their Christian master's great holiday. + +In respecting our customs, they had taken occasion to establish one of +their own. They had adopted New Year's as the day when their masters +should return their presents and good will in solid cash. + +At midnight we were awakened by a regular Fourth of July +pandemonium. Whistles from the factories, salvos from Fort Canning, +bells from the churches, Chinese tom-toms, Malay horns, rent the +air from that hour until dawn with all the discords of the Orient +and a few from Europe. By daylight the thousands of natives from all +quarters of the peninsula and neighboring islands had gathered along +the broad Ocean Esplanade of Singapore in front of the Cricket Club +House, to take part in or watch the native sports by land and sea. + +The inevitable Chinaman was there, the Kling, the Madrasman, the Sikh, +the Arab, the Jew, the Chitty, or Indian money-lender,--they were all +there, many times multiplied, unconsciously furnishing a background +of extraordinary variety and picturesqueness. + +At ten o'clock the favored representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race +took their place on the great veranda of the Cricket Club, and gave +the signal that we would condescend to be amused for ten hours. Then +the show commenced. There were not over two hundred white people to +represent law and civilization amid the teeming native population. + +In the centre of the beautiful esplanade or playground rose the heroic +statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, the English governor who made Singapore +possible. To my right, on the veranda, stood a modest, gray-haired +little man who cleared the seas of piracy and insured Singapore's +commercial ascendency, Sir Charles Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak. A little +farther on, surrounded by a brilliant suite of Malay princes, was +the Sultan of Johore, whose father sold the island of Singapore to +the British. + +The first of the sports was a series of foot-races between Malay and +Kling boys, almost invariably won by the Malays, who are the North +American Indians of Malaysia--the old-time kings of the soil. They are +never, like the Chinese, mere beasts of burden, or great merchants, +nor do they descend to petty trade, like the Indians or Bengalese. If +they must work they become horsemen. + +Next came a jockey race, in which a dozen long-limbed Malays took +each a five-year-old child astride his shoulders, and raced for +seventy-five yards. There were sack-races and greased-pole climbing +and pig-catching. + +Now came a singular contest--an eating match. Two dozen little Malay, +Kling, Tamil, and Chinese boys were seated at regular intervals about +an open circle by one of the governor's aids. Not one could touch the +others in any way. Each had a dry, hard ship-biscuit before him. A +pistol shot and two dozen pairs of little brown fists went pit-a-pat +on the two dozen hard biscuits, and in an instant the crackers were +broken to powder. + +Then commenced the difficult task of forcing the powdered pulp down +the little throats. Both hands were called into full play during the +operation, one for crowding in, the other for grinding the residue +and patting the stomach and throat. Each little competitor would shyly +rub into the warm earth, or hide away in the folds of his many-colored +sarong, as much as possible, or when a rival was looking the other way, +would snap a good-sized piece across to him. + +The little brown fellow who won the fifty-cent piece by finishing +his biscuit first simply put into his mouth a certain quantity of the +crushed biscuit, and with little or no mastication pushed the whole +mass down his throat by sheer force. + +The minute the contest was decided, all the participants, and +many other boys, rushed to a great tub of molasses to duck for +half-dollars. One after another their heads would disappear into +the sticky, blinding mass, as they fished with their teeth for the +shining prizes at the bottom. + +Successful or otherwise, after their powers were exhausted they would +suddenly pull out their heads, reeking with the molasses, and make +for the ocean, unmindful of the crowds of natives in holiday attire +who blocked their way. + +Then came a jinrikisha race, with Chinese coolies pulling Malay +passengers around a half-mile course. Letting go the handles of their +wagons as they crossed the line, the coolies threw their unfortunate +passengers over backward. + +Tugs of war, wrestling matches, and boxing bouts on the turf finished +the land sports, and we all adjourned to the yachts to witness those +of the sea. There were races between men-of-war cutters, European +yachts, rowing shells, Chinese sampans, and Malay colehs with great, +dart-like sails, so wide-spreading that ropes were attached to the +top of the masts, and a dozen naked natives hung far out over the +side of the slender boat to keep it from blowing over. In making the +circle of the harbor they would spring from side to side of the boat, +sometimes lost to our view in the spray, often missing their footholds, +and dragging through the tepid water. + +Between times, while watching the races, we amused ourselves +throwing coppers to a fleet of native boys in small dugouts beneath +our bows. Every time a penny dropped into the water, a dozen little +bronze forms would flash in the sunlight, and nine times out of ten +the coin never reached the bottom. + +Last of all came the trooping of the English colors on the magnificent +esplanade, within the shadow of the cathedral; the march past of the +sturdy British artillery and engineers, with their native allies, the +Sikhs and Sepoys; then the feu-de-joie, and New Year's was officially +recognized by the guns of the fort. + +That night we danced at Government House,--we exiles of the Temperate +Zone,--keeping up to the last the fiction that New Year's Day under +a tropic sky and within sound of the tiger's wail was really January +first. But every remembrance and association was, in our homesick +thoughts, grouped about an open arch fire, with the sharp, crisp +creak of sleigh-runners outside, in a frozen land fourteen thousand +miles away. + + + + + +IN THE BURST OF THE SOUTHWEST MONSOON + +A Tale of Changhi Bungalow + + +We had been out all day from Singapore on a wild-pig hunt. There were +eight of us, including three young officers of the Royal Artillery, +besides somewhere between seventy and a hundred native beaters. The +day had been unusually hot, even for a country whose regular record +on the thermometer reads 150 degrees in the sun. + +We had tramped and shot through jungle and lallang grass, until, when +night came on, I was too tired to make the fourteen miles back across +the island, and so decided to push on a mile farther to a government +"rest bungalow." I said good-by to my companions and the game, and +accompanied only by a Hindu guide, struck out across some ploughed +lands for the jungle road that led to and ended at Changhi. + +Changhi was one of three rest bungalows, or summer resorts, if +one can be permitted to mention summer in this land of perpetual +summer. They were owned and kept open by the Singapore Government for +the convenience of travellers, and as places to which its own officials +can flee from the cares of office and the demands of society. I had +stopped at Changhi Bungalow once for some weeks when my wife and a +party of friends and all our servants were with me. It was lonely +even then, with the black impenetrable jungle crowding down on three +sides, and a strip of the blinding, dazzling waters of the uncanny +old Straits of Malacca in front. + +There were tigers and snakes in the jungle, and crocodiles and sharks +in the Straits, and lizards and other things in the bungalow. I thought +of all this in a disjointed kind of a way, and half wished that I +had stayed with my party. Then I noticed uneasily that some thick +oily-looking clouds were blotting out the yellow haze left by the sun +over on the Johore side. A few big hot drops of rain splashed down into +my face, as I climbed wearily up the dozen cement steps of the house. + +The bamboo chicks were all down, and the shutter-doors securely locked +from the inside, but there was a long rattan chair within reach, +and I dropped into it with a sigh of satisfaction, while my guide +went out toward the servant-quarters to arouse the Malay mandor, or +head gardener, whom H. B. M.'s Government trusted with this portion +of her East Indian possessions. + +As might have been expected, that high functionary was not to be +found, and I was forced to content myself, while my guide went on to +a neighboring native police station to make inquiries. I unbuttoned +my stiff kaki shooting-jacket, lit a manila, which my mouth was too +dry to smoke, and gazed up at the ceiling in silence. + +It was stiflingly hot. Even the cicadas in the great jungle tree, that +towered a hundred and fifty feet above the house, were quiet. Every +breath I took seemed to scorch me, and the balls of my eyes ached. The +sky had changed to a dull cartridge color. + +A breeze came across the hot, glaring surface of the Straits, and +stirred the tops of a little clump of palms, and died away. It brought +with it the smell of rain. + +For a moment there was a dead stillness,--not even a lizard clucked +on the wall back of me; then all at once the thermometer dropped down +two or three degrees, and a tearing wind struck the bamboo curtains +and stretched them out straight; the tops of the massive jungle trees +bent and creaked; there was a blinding flash and a roar of thunder, +and all distance was lost in darkness and rain. It was one of the +quick, fierce bursts of the southwest monsoon. + +I did not move, although wet to the skin. + +Presently I could make out three blurred figures fighting their way +slowly against the storm across the compound. One was the guide; +the second was the mandor, naked save for a cotton sarong around his +waist; the third was a stranger. + +The trio came up on the veranda--the stranger hanging behind, with an +apologetic droop of his head. He was a white man, in a suit of dirty, +ragged linen. It took but one look to place him. I had seen hundreds of +them "on the beach" in Singapore,--there could be no mistake. "Loafer" +was written all over him--from his ragged, matted hair to the fringe +on the bottom of his trousers. He held a broken cork helmet, that had +not seen pipe-clay for many a month, in his grimy hands, and scraped +one foot and ducked his dripping head, as I turned toward him with +a gruff,-- + +"Well?" + +"Beg pardon, sir," he said, in a harsh, rasping voice, "but I heard +that the American Consul was here. I am an American." + +He looked up with a watery leer in his eyes. + +"Go on," I said, without offering to take the hand of my +fellow-countryman. + +He let his arm fall to his side. + +"I ain't got any passport; that went with the rest, and I never had +the heart to ask for another." + +He gave a bad imitation of a sob. + +"Never mind the side play," I commented, as he began to rumble in +the bottomless pocket of his coat. "I will supply all that as you go +along. What is it you want?" + +He withdrew his hand and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. + +"Come in out of the rain and you won't need to do that," I said, +amused at this show of feeling. + +"I thought as how you might give a countryman a lift," he whined. + +I smiled and stepped to the door. + +"Boy, bring the gentleman a whiskey and soda." + +The "boy" brought the liquor, while I commenced to unstrap and dry +my Winchester. + +My fellow-countryman did not move, but stood nervously tottering from +one leg to the other, as I went on with my task. He coughed once or +twice to attract my attention. + +"Beg pardon, sir, but I meant work--good, honest work. Work was what +I wanted, to earn this very glass of whiskey for my little gal. She's +sick, sir, sick--sick in a hut at the station." + +"Your little what?" I asked in amazement. + +"My little gal, sir. She's all that's left me. If you'll trust me +with the glass, I'll take it to her. Can't give you no security, +I'm afraid, only the word of a broken-down old father, who has got +a little gal what he loves better than life!" + +My long experience with tramps and beach-combers was at fault. No +words can convey an idea of the pathos and humility he threw into +his tone and actions. The yearning of the voice, the almost divine +air of self-abnegation, the subdued flash of pride here and there +that suggested better days, the hopeless droop of the arms, and the +irresolute tremble of the corners of his mouth would have appealed +to the heart of a heathen idol. That one of his caste should refuse +a glass of "Usher's Best," and be willing to brave the burst of a +southwest monsoon to take it to any one--child, mother, or wife--was +incredible. + +"Drink it," I said roughly. "You will need it before you get to the +station. Boy, bring me my waterproof and an umbrella. Now out you +go. We'll see whether this 'little gal' is male or female,--seven +or seventy." + +The loafer snatched up his helmet with an avidity that admitted of +no question as to his earnestness. + +We made a wild rush down across the oozing compound, through a little +strip of dripping jungle, over a swaying foot-bridge that spanned +the muddy Sonji Changhi, and along the sandy floor of a cocoanut +grove. On the outskirts of a station we came upon a deserted bungalow, +that was trembling in the storm on its rotten supports. + +We went up its rickety ladder and across its open bamboo floor, to +the darkest corner, where, on an old mat under the only dry spot in +the hut, lay a bundle of rags. + +My companion dropped down among the decayed stumps of pineapples and +cocoanut refuse, and commenced to croon in a hoarse voice, "Daddy +come,--Daddy come,--poor dearie," and made a motion as though to put +the bottle to a small, dirty white face that I could just make out +among the rags. + +I pushed him aside and gathered the unconscious little burden up into +my arms. There was no time for sentiment. Every minute I expected +the miserable old shelter would go over. + +We made our way as best we could back through the darkness and +driving blasts of rain. The loafer followed with a long series of "God +bless you's." He essayed once or twice to hold the umbrella over his +"little gal's" head, but each time the wind turned it inside out, and +he gave it up with an air of feeble inconsequence that characterized +all his movements. + +I put my burden down on a couch in the dining room, and chafed her +hands and feet, while the boy brought a beer bottle filled with +hot water. + +It was a sweet little face, pinched and drawn, with big hazel eyes, +that looked up into mine as my efforts sent the blood coursing through +her veins. She was between five and six years old. A mass of dark +brown hair, unkempt and matted, fell about her face and shoulders. + +I wrapped a rug about her. She was asleep almost before I had finished. + +A little later I roused her, and she nestled her damp little head +against my shoulder as I gave her some soup; but her eyelids were +heavy, and it seemed almost cruel to keep her awake, even for the +food she so badly needed. The father had shuffled about uneasily +during my motherly attentions, and seemed relieved when I was through. + +While the boy brought a steaming hot curry and a goodly supply of +whiskey and soda, I turned the self-confessed father of the big hazel +eyes into the bath-room. + +With the grime and dirt off his face he was pale and haggard. There +were big blue marks under his shifting gray eyes and his hair hung +ragged and singed about his ears. + +He had discarded his dirty linen for a blue-flannel bathing-suit that +some former high official of H. B. M. service had left behind. There +were traces of starvation or dissipation in every movement. His hand +trembled as he conveyed the hot soup to his blue lips. + +Gradually the color came back to his sunken cheeks, and by the time +he had laid in the second plate of curry and drank two whiskey and +sodas he looked comparatively sleek and respectable. Even his anxiety +for the little sleeper seemed to fade out of his weak face. + +I had been watching him narrowly during the meal. I could not make +up my mind whether he was a clever actor or only an unfortunate; +he might be the latter, and still be what I was certain of,--a scamp. + +The wind whistled and roared about the great verandas and into the +glassless windows with all the vehemence of a New England snowstorm. It +caught our well-protected punkah-lamps, and turned their broad flames +into spiral columns of smoke. Ever and again a flash of lightning +flared in our eyes, and revealed the water of the narrow straits +lashed into a white fury. + +I should have been thankful for the company of even a dog on such a +night, and think the loafer felt it, for I could see that he was more +at ease with every crash of thunder. I tiptoed over to the "little +gal," and noted her soft, regular breathing and healthful sleep, +undisturbed by the fierce storm outside. + +I lit a manila, and handed one to my companion. We puffed a moment +in silence, while the boy replenished our glasses. + +"Now," I said, tipping my chair back against the wall, "tell me +your story." + +My guest's face at once assumed the expression of the professional +loafer. My faith in him began to wane. + +"I am an American," he began glibly enough under the combined effects +of the whiskey and dinner, "an old soldier. I fought with Grant in +the Wilderness, and--" + +"Of course," I interrupted, "and with Sherman in Georgia. I have heard +it all by a hundred better talkers than you. Suppose you skip it." + +I did not look up, but I was perfectly familiar with the expression +of injured innocence that was mantling his face. + +He began again in a few minutes, but his voice had lost some of its +engaging frankness. + +"I am the son of a kind and indulgent mother,--God bless her. My +father died before I knew him--" + +I moved uneasily in my chair. + +He hurried on:-- + +"I fell in bad ways in spite of her saintly love, and ran away to sea." + +"Look here, my friend," I said, "I am sorry to spoil your little tale, +but it is an old one. Can't you give me something new? Now try again." + +He looked at me unsteadily under his thin eyebrows, shuffled restlessly +in his seat, and said with something like a sob in his voice:-- + +"Well, sir, I will. You have been kind to me and taken my little gal +in; you saved her life, and, for a change, I'll tell you the truth." + +He drew himself up a little too ostentatiously, threw his head back, +and said proudly:-- + +"I am a gentleman born." + +"Good," I laughed. "Now you are on the right track, and besides you +look it." + +"Ah! you may sneer," he retorted, "but I tell you the truth." + +His face flushed and his lip quivered. He brought his fist down on +the table. + +"I tell you my father,--ah! but never mind my father." His voice +failed him. + +"Certainly," I replied. "Only get on with your story." + +"I came out to India from Boston as a young man," he continued, +"either in '66 or '68, I forget which." + +"Try '67," I suggested. + +"It was not '67," he exclaimed angrily, "it was either '66 or '68." + +"Or some other date. However, that's but a detail. Proceed." + +"Sir, you can make sport of me, but what I am telling you is God's +truth. May I be struck dead if one lie passes my lips. I came out to +plant coffee; I thought, like many others, that I had only to cut down +the jungle and put in coffee plants, and make my everlasting fortune." + +"And didn't you?" I asked, glancing at his dilapidated old helmet +that hung over the corner of the sideboard. + +"Look at me!" he burst forth, springing upon his feet, his breast +heaving under his blue pajamas. + +"Pardon the question," I answered. "Go on, you are doing bravely." + +He sank back into his chair with a commendable air of dignity. + +"I had a little money of my own," he continued, "and opened up an +estate. It promised well, but I soon came to the end of my small +capital. I thought I could go to Calcutta and Bombay and Simla, +and cultivate my mind by travel and society, while the bushes were +growing. Well it ended in the same old way. I got into the chitties' +hands--they are worse than Jews--at two per cent a month on a mortgage +on my estate. Then I went back to it with a determination to pay up +my debt, make my estate a success, and after that to see the world. +I worked, sir, like a nigger, and for a time was able to meet my naked +creditor, from month to month, hoping all the time against hope for +a bumper crop." + +"I understand," I said. "Your bumper crop did not come, and your +chitty did. Where does she come in?" I nodded in the direction of +the little sleeper. + +He glanced uneasily in the same direction, and a tear gathered in +his eye. + +"I married on credit, sir, the daughter of an English army officer. It +was infernal. But, sir, you would have done likewise. Live under the +burning sun of India for four years, struggle against impossibilities +and hope against hope, and then have a pair of great hazel eyes look +lovingly into yours and a pair of red lips turned up to yours,--and +tell me if you would not have closed your eyes to the future, and +accepted this precious gift as though it were sent from above?" + +The pale, shrunken face of the speaker glowed, and his faded eyes +lit up with the light of love. + +"We were happy for a time, and the little gal was born, but the +bumper crop did not come. Then, sir, I sold farm tools and my horse, +and sent the wife to a hill station for her health. I kept the little +gal. I stayed to work, as none of my natives ever worked. It was a +gay station to which she went. You know the rest,--she never came +back. That ended the struggle. I would have shot myself but for the +little one. I took her and we wandered here and there, doing odd jobs +for a few months at a time. I drifted down to Singapore, hoping to +better myself, but, sir, I am about used up. It's hard--hard." + +He buried his head in his long, thin fingers, and sat perfectly still. + +There was a sound outside above the roar of the wind and the rain. At +first faint and intermittent, it grew louder, and continuous, and +came close. There was no mistaking it,--the march of booted men. + +"What's that?" asked my companion, with a start. + +"Tommy Atkins," I replied, "the clang of the ammunition boot as big +as life." + +His face grew ashy white, and he looked furtively around the room. + +"What's the matter?" I exclaimed, but as I asked, I knew. + +I opened the bath-room door and shoved him in. + +"Go in there" I said, "and compose some more fairy tales." + +He was scarcely out of sight when the front door was thrown open, +and a corporal's guard, wet yet happy, marched into the room. + +The corporal stood with his back to the door, and gave himself +mental words of command,--"Eyes left, eyes right,"--then, as a last +resource,--"eyes under the table." He had not noticed the little bundle +in the dark corner. He drew himself up and gave the military salute. + +"Beg pardon, sir, but we are out for a deserter from the 58th,--Bill +Hulish,--we 'ave tracked him 'ere, and with the compliments of the +commanding hofficer, we'll search the 'ouse." + +"Search away," I answered, as I heard the outside bath-room door open +and close softly. + +They returned empty-handed, but not greatly disappointed. + +"Wet night, corporal," I ventured. + +"One of the worst as ever I knew, sir," he replied, eying the whiskey +bottle and the two half-drained glasses. + +"'Ad a long march, sir, fourteen miles." + +I pushed the bottle toward him, and with a deprecatory salute he +turned out a stiff drink. + +"'Ere's to yer 'ealth, sir, an' may ye always 'ave an extra glass +ready for a visitor." + +I smiled, and motioned for his men to do likewise, and then, because +he was a man of sweet composure and had not asked any questions as +to the extra glass and chair, told him that his bird had flown. + +"Bad 'cess to him, sir, 'e's led us a pretty chase for these last +four weeks. If 'e was only a deserter I wouldn't mind, but 'e's a +kidnapper. Leastways, Tommy Loud's young'n turned up missin' the day +he skipped, an' we ain't seen nothin' of 'er since." + +"Is this she?" I asked, leading him to the cot. + +Hardly looking at the child, he raised her in his arms and kissed her. + +"God be praised, sir," he said with a show of feeling. "We 'ave got +her back. I think her mother would 'ave died if we 'ad come back again +without her,--but, O my little darlin', you look cruel bad. Drugged, +sir, that's what she is. Drugged to keep 'er quiet and save food. The +blag'ard!" + +"But what did he take her for?" I asked. + +"Bless you, sir," replied the corporal, "she was his stock in trade. I +reckon she's drawn many dibs out of other people's pockets that would +'ave been nestlin' there to-day if it 'adn't 'a' bin for 'er." + +Then a broad grin broke over his ruddy features, and he looked at +me quizzically. + +"But 'e was a great play hactor, sir." + +"And a poet," I added enthusiastically. + +"'E could beat Kipling romancin', sir." He checked himself, as though +ashamed of awarding such meed of praise to his ex-colleague. + +"But we must be goin'; orders strict. With your permission, sir, +I will leave her with a guard of one man for to-night, and send the +ambulance for her in the morning." + +He drew up his little file, saluted, and marched out into the rain +and wind, with all the cheerfulness of a duck. + +I could hear them singing as they crossed the compound and struck +into the jungle road:-- + + + "Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, go away'; + But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play, + The band begins to--" + + +A peal of thunder that shook the bungalow from its attap roof to its +nebong pillars drowned the melody and drove me inside. + + + + + +A PIG HUNT + +In the Malayan Jungle + + +The thermometer stood at 155 degrees in the sun. The dry lallang grass +crackled and glowed and returned long irregular waves of heat to the +quivering metallic dome above. + +The sensitive mimosa, at our feet, had long since surrendered to the +fierce wooing of the sun-god, submissively folding its leaves and +then its branches and putting aside its morning dress of green for +one more in keeping with the color of the earth and sky. Even the +clamorous cicada had hushed its insistent whir. + +We were dressed in brown kaki suits. Wide-spreading cork helmets +were filled with the stiff varnished leaves of the mango, and wet +handkerchiefs were draped from underneath their rims; yet, after an +hour of exposure, our flesh ached--it was tender to the touch. The +barrel of my Express scorched my hand, and I wrapped my camerabuna +about it. But then it was no hotter than any other day. In fact, +we never gave a thought to the weather. + +We were formed in a line, perhaps two miles in length, in a +deserted pepper plantation, fronting a jungle of timboso trees +and rubber-vines. I squatted patiently under the checkered shade +of a neglected coffee tree and kept my eyes fixed on the seemingly +impenetrable walls of the jungle. A hundred feet to the right and the +left, under like protection, were two of my companions, determined +like myself to be successful in three points,--to have the first shot +at the pigs, to avoid getting shot, or shooting a neighbor. But our +minds rose above mental cautions with the first faint halloos of the +Hindu shikaris on the opposite side of the jungle. In another moment +the babel gave place to a confusion of shrieks, howls, yells, laughs, +barking of dogs, beating of tins, blowing of horns, explosions of +crackers, and a din that represents all that is wild and untamable +in three nations. It is a weird, almost appalling prologue. Those +laughs!--they are a study--they fairly chill the blood--they would make +the fortune of a comic actor--so intense, thrilling, surprising, and +seemingly filled with a ghoulish glee. Over and over they would break +out clear and distinct above the tintamarre. I have never been able +to find out whether it belongs to the Malay or the Kling or the Tamil. + +The yelling became more distinct. A troop of brown and silver wah-wahs +swung with their long arms out to the very edge of the jungle and then +up to the tops of the highest trees, the while uttering the full, +clear note from which they take their name; followed by a troop of +gray little jungle monkeys, whistling and scolding at the unwonted +disturbance. A colony of cicadas on the limbs of a great gutta tree +awoke into life and pierced our ears with buzz-saw strains. + +In an instant we were all alert,--the heat was forgotten. At any minute +a herd of pigs might dart out and on to us, or possibly our drivers +might rouse a tiger. The screaming ascended to a delirious pitch--the +pigs were discovered! I threw my cartridge from the magazine into the +barrel. It was a 50x95 Express and I had perfect confidence that one +ball to a pig was sufficient. + +The yelling grew nearer until, with a sudden deploy, one hundred +Klings and Malays dashed out into the open, close on the heels of a +dozen wild pigs. We could just see their black backs above the grass, +as they broke down a little ravine in single file, led by a big, +hoary boar with tusks. They were three hundred yards off, but I could +not resist the temptation. I brought my rifle to my shoulder and fired +twice in rapid succession. Two or three more shots were heard beyond. I +threw out the shells as the herd lunged on me. It was so sudden that +I was dazed, but fortunately so were the pigs, with the exception of +a wary old leader, who made into the jungle behind, almost between my +legs. One little fellow threw himself on his haunches for an instant +and stared at me. I came to my senses first and put a ball into his +wondering eyes. My second shot was so near that it tore away a pound +of meat from his shoulder and killed him instantly. + +The firing had opened up all along the line. The drivers were +pushing in nearer and nearer, beating the grass and clumps of bushes, +seemingly regardless of the widely flying balls. I suspect they held +our prowess in contempt. I know they looked it, when it was discovered +that out of the dozen pigs they had raised, we had allowed over half +to escape. Then, too, their lives were insured, in a way; for they +knew that their deaths would cost us twenty big Mexican dollars. + +Pig-hunting is the one big-game hunt that can be indulged in on the +Malay Peninsula without great preparation and danger. Deer and tapirs +are scarce. Tigers, or harimau as the Malays call them, abound, but +live in the depths of the almost inaccessible jungle, and come forth +only at rare intervals, except in the case of the man-eaters, who +are usually ignominiously caught in pitfalls, very seldom affording +true sport. Elephants are still hunted in the native states north +of Singapore, but the sport is too expensive for the generality of +sportsmen. One of the peculiar attributes of the Malayan tiger is his +decided penchant for Chinese flesh, repeatedly striking down Chinese +coolies in the fields to the exclusion of the Malays or Europeans who +are working by their side. Perhaps once a month, a tiger or his skin +will be brought into the city by natives, and several times at night +I have heard them in the jungle; but to my knowledge only three have +been shot by European sportsmen during my residence in the island. So +wild pigs really remain the one item of big game. + +The pigs live in the jungle bordering plantations in which they can +range for pineapples, sweet potatoes, and tapioca root. They are +the ordinary wild hog, black in color, and fleet of foot. The older +ones have good-sized tusks and show fight when cornered. The lone +sportsman has very little chance of obtaining a shot, so they are +hunted in large companies of from five to fifteen guns. Such parties +generally organize a hunt at least once a week and leave Singapore +early in the morning for an all-day shoot. + +The pig hunts organized by the officers of the Royal Artillery are +the largest, and as a description of one is a description of all, +I will take one up in regular order, rather than quote from many. + +We left Singapore at six o'clock in the morning in a four-horse +dray. As the sun had not reached the tops of the trees, the +atmosphere was mild and pleasant. A half-hour took us outside the +great cosmopolitan city, of three hundred thousand inhabitants. The +low, cool bungalows with their wide-spreading lawns gave place to +the grass-thatched huts of the Chinese coolies, and the omnipresent +eating-stalls. A hard-packed road carried us through almost endless +cocoanut groves. At intervals a Malay kampong, or village, was +revealed in the heart of the grove, its queer attap-thatched houses +raised a man's height from the ground, and connected with it by rickety +ladders. Dozens of nude little children played under the shadow of the +palms, while the comely faces and syrah-stained teeth of their mothers +peeped at us from behind low barred windows. The cocoanut groves were +superseded by tapioca, pepper, and coffee plantations. At regular +distances were neat stations, manned by Malay and Sikh police. The +roads over which we dashed were in perfect repair. In another hour +we were nine miles from Singapore and near our first "beat." + +Major Rich had sent his shikaris on the night before to collect +beaters, so that when we arrived we were welcomed by a small +army of Klings, Tamils, and Malays, and the usual sprinkling of +pariah dogs. A wild, strange set are these beaters. They toil not, +neither do they spin. Their wives do that occasionally, making a +few sarongs for home use and an odd one for the market. Cocoanuts, +pineapples, a little patch of paddy with a dozen half-wild chickens, +and perchance, if they are not Mohammedans, a pig with its litter, +afford them sustenance. For their day's beating they were to receive +fifteen cents apiece. They were all ranged in line and counted, +after which we took up our march through a plantation of tapioca, +the brush standing about level with our heads. Chinese coolies +were working about its roots keeping down the great pest of Malayan +farmers,--lallang grass. The tapioca was broken in places by a few +acres of pepper vines and again by neglected coffee shrubs. + +Our procession was truly formidable. Fifty or more natives went on +ahead making a path. Then we followed, fifteen in number, each with +a native to carry his gun. The rear was brought up by twoscore more +and half as many dogs. Three-quarters of an hour's walk brought us +to our first beat. The head shikaris placed us in an open position, +from fifty to one hundred yards apart, facing the jungle. The beaters, +in the meantime, had gone by a long detour around the jungle to drive +whatever it contained within reach of our guns. + +In the second of these beats (I described the first in the opening of +this chapter) a deer ran out far in advance of the pigs. We caught +but a fleeting glimpse of it above the grass. My gun and that of my +neighbor went off simultaneously. The deer disappeared. We rushed +to the spot and found the leaves dyed with blood. Then commenced a +chase, which, although fruitless, was well worth the exertion. All +the panorama of tropical life seemed to lay in our tracks. For +an half-hour we traversed the rolling plain with its burden of +grass. Some smoker dropped a match in it, and in an instant it was +all ablaze, spreading away like a whirlwind, burning only the very +tips, toward a distant jungle. Then we dove into a bosky wood by +a narrow winding path, and through a stream of water. The path was +like a tunnel, the dense foliage shutting it in on both sides and +above. The thorns of the rattans reached down and tore our clothes, +and long trailing rubber-vines caught up our helmets and held our +feet. In a marshy bit of jungle, a small colony of unwieldy sago +palms found root, while pitcher-plants and orchids hung from almost +every limb. Clumsy gray iguanas and long-tailed lizards of a brilliant +green rushed up the trunks of lichen-covered trees. Troops of monkeys +went scattering away on all sides, and black squirrels chattered on in +the perfect security of the dim obscurity. In a bit of sandy bottom, +a silken-haired, zebra-striped tapir scuttled away ere we were half +alive to his presence. + +Outside was the metallic glare of the Malayan sun once more, now at its +height, and another march was before us, over the burning hot mesa. At +one o'clock we came upon a half-neglected plantation. The bloody trail +of the deer led through it. In the centre of the plantation we found +a huge wedge-shaped attap house for drying pepper, and there we rested. + +Our tiffin baskets were six miles away in the dray, and sending after +them was out of the question. So we foraged for eatables. Cocoanuts +were easily obtained from trees all about, and a little whiskey +mixed with its milk made a very refreshing drink. Pineapples, small +oranges, limes, papayas, custard apples, and bananas were in large +quantities. Our drivers added to this bill of fare by roasting the +sweet-potato-like roots of the tapioca. After this impromptu lunch +they compounded their quids of areca-nut and lime, and were ready +once more to beat up an adjacent jungle for deer, pig, or tiger. + +As before, we were soon in position in the open before the jungle +and the beaters were yelling at the top of their voices. + +I was half dozing in the sun, trying to smoke a Manila cigar that +my mouth was too dry to draw, when I was aroused by my neighbor, +who called my attention to a file of pigs at the extreme end of the +line. I could just see what was going on from the knoll on which I +was standing. They were received by Major Rich, one of his subalterns, +and his Hindu gun-carrier. One of the file fell at the first volley, +two more broke through the line, and the remaining six or seven, +led by a fierce old fellow, from whose long tusks the foam dripped, +turned up the line and charged point-blank on the next gunner, who +fired and missed, but succeeded in keeping them between the line and +the jungle. The fourth gun brought down the second pig and wounded the +boar in the shoulder. Frantic with rage and pain, the old fellow tore +up the ground and grass with his tusks and then, seeming to give up +all idea of escape, wheeled sharply around and with his back bristles +standing erect and his mouth open, charged directly on to the fifth, +who was in the act of throwing the cartridge into the barrel. Taken +completely by surprise, the officer gave one lusty yell and started +to run in line with the gun on his right. The boar was gaining on +him at every step when he tripped and fell. The report of No. 6's +Winchester Express rang out almost simultaneously. For an instant we +held our breaths, wondering whether the man or boar had been hit. It +was a splendid shot and took a steady hand. The boar's shoulder was +shattered and his heart reached. Two or three angry grunts and he lay +quiet. He weighed close to three hundred pounds. The bristles on his +back were white with age. All in all, he was not nice to look at. + +As half of our beaters were Mohammedans and so forbidden to touch pork, +the burden of carrying our pigs the six miles through lallang grass, +jungle and swamp land, came hard on our Brahmists. We knew that the +only way to make them work was to call them "Sons of dogs" and walk +off and leave them with a parting injunction to "get in by the time +we did if they wanted their wages." + +This we did without deigning to notice their pathetic gestures, +heart-rending appeals and protestations to the "Sons of the +Heaven-Born" that they could not lift one hundredth part of such +burdens. + + + + + +IN THE COURT OF JOHORE + +The Crowning of a Malayan Prince + + +Tunku Ibrahim was just past seventeen when his father, the Sultan +Abubaker, chose to recognize him as his heir and Crown Prince of +Johore. + +From the day when the little prince had been deemed old enough to leave +his mother and the women's palace until the day he had entered the +native artillery as a lieutenant, he had been schooled and trained by +the English missionaries and the Tuan Kadi, or Mohammedan high priest, +as becomes a son of so illustrious a father. + +Tunku Ibrahim had made one trip to England when he was fifteen years +old, and with his little cousin, the Tunku, or Prince, Othman, had +dined with the Queen at Windsor. + +So, when the Sultan returned from a long stay at Carlsbad and found +that the Sultana was dead and that Ibrahim had shot up into a man, +he said:-- + +"I am getting to be an old man and may die at any time. I will call +all my nobles and people to the palace, and they shall see me place the +crown on Ibrahim's head. Then if I die, he will rule, and the British +will not take his country from him as long as he is wise and kingly." + +Whereupon his Highness sent out invitations to the Governor and all +the foreign consuls in Singapore to be his guests and witness the +crowning of his son. + +We started in quaint little box-like carriages, called gharries, long +before the fierce Malayan sun had risen above the palms, accomplishing +the fourteen miles across the beautiful island in little over an hour. + +The diminutive Deli ponies, not larger than Newfoundland dogs, +broke into a run the moment we closed the lattice doors, and it was +all their half-naked drivers could do to keep their perches on the +swaying shafts. + +When we arrived at the little half-Malay, half-Chinese village of +Kranji, on the shores of the famous old Straits of Malacca, our +ponies were panting with heat, and the sun beat down on our white +cork helmets with a quivering, naked intensity. + +Close up to the shore we found a long, keel boat manned by a dozen +Malays in canary-colored suits. An aide-de-camp in a gorgeous uniform +of gold and blue came forward and touched his forehead with the back +of his brown palm and said in good English:-- + +"His Highness awaits your excellencies." + +We stepped into the boat. The men lightly dipped their spear-shaped +paddles in the tepid water, the rattan oarlocks squeaked shrilly, +and the light prow shot out into the strait. We could see the istana, +or palace, close down to the opposite shore, with the royal standard +of white, with black star and crescent in centre, floating above it. + +For a moment I felt as though I had invaded some dreamland of my +childhood. + +As our boat drew up to the iron pier that extended from the broad +palace steps out into the straits, the guns from the little fort on the +hill above the town boomed out a welcome and the flags of our several +countries were run to the tops of the poles. A squad of native soldiers +presented arms, and we were conducted up the stone steps, to the cool, +dim corridors of the reception or waiting room. Malays in red fezzes +and silken sarongs that hung about their legs like skirts conducted us +along a marble hall to our rooms in a wing of the palace. Crowds were +already gathering outside on the palace grounds, and we could look down +from our windows and watch them as we bathed, dressed, and drank tea. + +The Chinese in their holiday pantaloons and shirts of pink, lavender, +and blue silk: outnumbered all the other races; for, strange as it +may seem, this Malay Sultan numbers among his 250,000 or 300,000 +subjects 175,000 Chinamen. They are as loyal and a great deal more +industrious than the Malays, and many of them, styled Baboos, do not +even know their native tongue. + +The Malays, dressed in gayly colored sarongs and bajus (jackets), +with little rimless caps on their heads, squatted on their heels and +chewed betel-nut, with eyes half closed and mouths distended. + +The Arab traders and shopkeepers were grouped about in little knots, +gravely conversing and watching the files of gharries or carriages, +and even rickshaws, that were bringing Malay unkus (princes not of +the royal blood), patos (peers), holy men, and rich Chinese mandarins +to the steps that led up to the plaza before the throne-room. + +The palace was two stories high, long and narrow. The interior rooms +were separated from the outer walls by wide, airy corridors. The +lattice-work windows were without glass and were arranged to admit +the breezes from the ocean and ward off the searching rays of the +equatorial sun. In these dusky corridors were long rattan chairs, +divans, and tables covered with refreshments, and along its walls +were arranged weapons of war and chase, Japanese suits of straw armor, +Javanese shields, and Malay krises and limbings. + +In a little court at the end of our corridor, where a fountain splashed +over a clump of lotus flowers and blue water lilies, a long-armed +silver wah-wah monkey played with a black Malay cat that had a kink +in its tail like the joint in a stovepipe, and chased the clucking +little gray lizards up the polished walls. + +The gorgeous aide stared in poorly concealed wonderment, when he +entered to conduct us to the grand salon, at my plain evening dress +suit, destitute of gold lace or decorations, but he was too polite to +say anything, and I humbly followed my uniformed colleagues through the +long suite of rooms. It would have been useless for me to have tried to +explain the great American doctrine of "Jeffersonian simplicity." He +would have shrugged his narrow shoulders, which would have meant, +"When you are among Romans, you should do as Romans do." + +In the grand salon, more than in any other part of the palace, one +feels that he is in the home of an Oriental prince whose tastes far +outrun his own dominions. + +Velvet carpets from Holland, divans from Turkey, rugs from Bokhara, +tapestries from Persia, and lace from France mingle with embroideries +from China, cut glass from England, and rare old Satsuma ware from +Japan. On a grand square German piano is a mass of music in which +the masterpieces of all countries have equal rights with the national +anthem of Johore. + +Going directly through a mass of Oriental drapery, we are in the +throne-room, where are gathered the nobility of the little Sultanate. + +Amid the crash of music and the booming of guns the Sultan took his +seat in one of the gilded chairs on the dais, with the English Governor +on his left. Ranged about the burnished walls of the great room, +several files deep, were the nobility of the kingdom, the ministers of +state, and officers of the army and navy, the space back of them being +filled with Chinese mandarins and towkoys, and rich native merchants +in their picturesque costumes. In front of the nobility, standing in +the form of a square, were the sons of the datos each bearing golden, +jewel-studded chogans, spears, krises, and maces. Inside the square +stood the fifteen consuls. Back of the throne were four young princes, +two bearing each the golden bejewelled kris of the Malay, another +the golden sword of state, and the fourth the cimeter of the Prophet. + +Up to the steps of the throne came the young prince, dressed in the +uniform of a lieutenant of artillery, with the royal order of Darjah +Krabat ablaze with jewels on his breast. He was slightly taller than +his father, the Sultan, straight, graceful, and handsome, with big, +brown eyes and strongly marked features. He was nervous and agitated, +and his lips trembled as he bent on one knee and kissed his Highness's +hand. + +Above our heads in the gilded walls, behind a grated opening, were +Inche Kitega, the Sultan's beautiful Circassian wife, and the women +of the court. We could see their black eyes as they peered curiously +down. It was only when the Dato Mentri, or Prime Minister, stood +up and asked his people if they wished the young Tunku to be their +future lord that we could hear their shrill voices mingling with the +"Suku, suku" ("We wish it, we wish it"), of the men. + +It is only the wives of the nobles that are secluded in the istana +isaras, or women palaces, according to Mohammedan law; the women of +the poor are as free as the more civilized countries of Europe. They +bask in the sun with their brown babies on their laps, or wander +among the cocoanuts that always surround their palm-thatched homes, +happy and contented, with no thought for the morrow. The trees furnish +them their food, and a few hours before their looms of dark kamooning +wood each week keep them supplied with their one article of dress--the +sarong. They never heard of the Bible, but they are very religious, +and at sunrise and sunset, at the deep-toned boom of the hollow log +that hangs before their little thatched mosques, they fall on their +faces and pray to "Allah, the All Merciful and Loving Kind." + +When the Crown Prince had stepped modestly back among his brothers +and cousins, a holy man in green robes and turban came forward and +read an address in Arabic. He recited the glories of the Prophet, +the promises of the Koran, and then told of the ancient greatness of +Johore,--how it once ruled the great peninsula that forever points +like a lean, disjointed finger down into the heart of the greatest +archipelago of the world,--how its ruler was looked up to and made +treaties with, by the kings of Europe,--of the coming of the thieving +Portuguese and the brutal Dutch,--of the dark, bloody years when the +deposed descendants of the once proud Emperors of Johore turned to +piracy,--of the new days that commenced when that great Englishman, +Sir Stamford Raffles, founded Singapore,--down to the glorious reign +of the present just ruler, Abubaker. + +Our eyes wandered from time to time out through the cool marble courts +and tried vainly to pierce the botanic chaos that crowded close up +to the palace grounds. Banian and sacred waringhan trees covered +great stretches of ground, and dropped their fantastic roots into the +steaming earth like living stalactites. The fan-shaped, water-hoarding +traveller's palm formed a background for the brilliant magenta-colored +bougainvillea. The dim, translucent depths of an orchid-house lured +us on, or a great pond covered with the sacred lotus, blue lilies, +and the flush-colored cups of the superb Victoria regia commanded +our admiration. Palms, flowering shrubs, ferns, and creepers rioted +on all sides. Monkeys swung above in the ropelike tendrils of the +rubber-vines, and spotted deer gamboled beneath the shade of mango +trees. + +The brilliant audience listened with bated breath to the dramatic +recital of their nation's story. Even we, who did not understand +a word, were impressed by their flushed faces and eager attention, +and when the band in the columned corridors beyond broke forth into +the national anthem of Johore and the vast concourse outside took up +the shouts of fealty that began within, I, for one, felt an almost +irresistible desire to join in the shouts and do honor to the kindly +old Sultan and his graceful son. + +After his Highness, the Sultan, had spoken, through the mouth of +his Prime Minister, to the nobles, and commended his son to their +care, we crowded forward and congratulated him in the names of our +respective countries. + +We filed through the grand salon, with its luxurious medley of divans, +tapestries, and rugs, through a great hall whose walls were hung with +heroic-sized paintings of the English royal family, down a flight of +steps, across the marble reception room, and into the open doors of +the royal dining room. + +From its polished ceiling of black billion wood hung great white +punkahs, which half-nude Indians on the outside kept gently swaying +back and forth. + +In the centre of the vast table stood a golden urn filled with +delicate maidenhair ferns and dragon orchids. Against a great +plate-glass mirror, at the far end, rested massive salvers of gold, +engraven with the arms of Johore, and in its flawless depths shone +the jewels that decked the entering throng and the splendid service +of plate that dazzled our eyes. + +Around his Highness's throat was a collar of diamonds and on his hands +and in the decorations that covered his breast were diamonds, emeralds, +and rubies, of almost priceless value. Each button of his coat and +low-cut vest was a diamond, and from the front of his rimless cap +waved a plume of diamonds. On his wrists were heavy gold bracelets +of Malayan workmanship, and his fingers were cramped with almost +priceless rings. In his buttonhole blazed a diamond orchid. The +handle and scabbard of his sword were a solid mass of precious +stones. Altogether this little known Oriental potentate possessed +$10,000,000 worth of diamonds, the second largest collection on earth. + +In personal appearance his Highness compared favorably with the best +representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race. He was five feet eight in +height, well built, with clean-cut, kindly features, in color nearer +the Spanish type than the Indian. His hands and feet were small, +forehead high and full, lips thin, and nose aquiline, his hair and +mustache iron gray. He spoke good English, and was able to converse in +French and German. In every-day dress he affected the English Prince +Albert suit, to which he added a narrow silk sarong and a rimless +black cap. + +Besides being a lover of jewels, his Highness was a lover of good +horseflesh and of yachts. His stud comprised two hundred horses, among +which were fleet Arabians, sturdy little Deli ponies, thoroughbred +Australians, and Indian galloways. Twice a year he offered a cup at +the Singapore jockey races, and entered a half dozen of his best +runners. At his tent on the grounds he dispensed champagne, ices, +and cakes, and his native band of thirty pieces played alternately +with the regimental band from the English barracks. + +His three hundred ton steam-launch was built on the Clyde. Besides +the Sultan's saloon on the lower deck, which was furnished befitting a +king, there were cabins for ten people. The promenade deck was under +an awning, and was furnished with a heavy rosewood dining-table and +long chairs. She carried four guns of long range. + +The revenue of Johore amounts to six million dollars a year, to +which the Sultan's private property in Singapore adds nearly a half +million more. The bulk of the national revenue is raised from opium, +spirits, and gambling. The scheme of taxation is simple, but most +effective. Any Chinaman who has a longing for the pipe pays into his +Highness's treasury one dollar a month, and is granted a permit to buy +and smoke opium; another monthly dollar and he is licensed to drink. + +The gambling privilege is given to the highest bidder, and he has the +monopoly for the kingdom. There is also a small export tax on gambier +and tin. On the other hand, any immigrant that wishes to settle and +open a farm of any kind is given all the ground he can work, rent free, +to have and to hold as long as he keeps it under cultivation. Should +he leave, it reverts with all its improvements to the crown. + +The government is autocratic, but tempered and kept in sympathy +with the English ideas of justice as seen in the great colonies that +surround it. + +The dinner throughout was European, save for the one national +dish, curry. Every Malay, from the poorest fisherman along the +mangrove-fretted lagoon to the chef of his Highness's kitchen, justly +boasts of the excellence of his curry and the number of sambuls he +can make. + +First came a golden bowl filled with rice, as white and as light +as snow; then another, in which was a gravy of yellow curry powder, +choice bits of fowl, and plump, fresh slices of egg-plant. Then came +the sambuls, or condiments, more than forty varieties, in little +circular dishes of Japanese ware on big silver trays. There were +fish-roes, ginger, and dried fish, or "Bombay duck," duck's eggs +hashed with spices, chutney, peppers, grated cocoanut, anchovies, +browned crumbs, chicken livers, fried bananas, barley sprouts, onions, +and many more, that were mixed and stirred into the spongy rice until +your taste was baffled and your senses bewildered. + +We knew that the curry was coming, so we passed courses that were +as expensive and rare in this equatorial land as the fruit of the +durians would be in New York,--mutton from Shanghai, turkey from Siam, +beef from Australia, and oysters from far up the river Maur. We felt +that besides being a pleasure to ourselves it was a compliment to +our royal host to partake generously of his national dish. + +"This service," said the old Tuan Hakim, or chief justice, pointing to +the gold plate off which we were dining, "is the famous Ellinborough +plate that once belonged to that strange woman, Lady Ellinborough. His +Highness attended the auction of her things in Scotland. Do you +see the little Arabic character on the rim of each? It is the late +Sultana's name. His Highness telegraphed to her for the money to pay +for it, and she telegraphed back two hundred thousand dollars, with +the request that her name be engraved on each. Then she presented +them to her husband. The Sultana was very rich in her own right, +and left the Sultan over two million dollars when she died." + +Throughout the long dinner the native band played the airs of Europe +and America, intermixed with bits of weird Malayan song. After we +had lighted our cigars from the golden censer, the British Governor +arose and proposed the health of the Sultan and the young heir +apparent. His Highness raised his glass of pineapple juice to his +lips in acknowledgment, and said smilingly to me as the Prime Minister +said the magic word that stirs every Englishman's heart,-- + +"The Queen!" + +"Your people think all Orientals very bad." + +I protested. + +"Oh, yes, you do; that is why you send so many missionaries among +us. But," he went on pleasantly, "look around my table. Not one of +my court has touched the wine. A Mohammedan never drinks. Can you +say as much for your people?" + +Then he raised his glass once more to his lips and said quietly, +while his eyes twinkled at my confusion:-- + +"Tell your great President that Abubaker, Sultan of Johore, drank +his health in simple pineapple juice." + +As the sun sank behind the misty dome of Mount Pulei we embarked once +more at the broad palace steps in the royal barges, amid the booming +of guns and the strains of the international "God Save the Queen," +"My Country, 'tis of Thee," and bared our heads to the royal standard +of Johore that floated so proudly above the palace, thankful for this +short peep into the heart of an Oriental court. + + + +So the young Prince received the crown from the hands of his +father. To-day, the bones of that grand old statesman, the Sultan of +Johore, rest beside those of his royal fathers within the shadow of +the mosque. + +In 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles purchased the island on which +Singapore now stands from the father of the late Sultan of Johore, +the royal palace was a palm-thatched bungalow, the country an +unbroken jungle, and the inhabitants pirates and fishermen by turns; +the notorious Strait of Malacca was infested with long, keen, swift +pirate praus, and the snake-like kris menaced the merchant marine of +the world. + +The advancement of the United States has not been more rapid since +that date than the advancement of Johore. The attap istana, or palace, +has given place to a series of palaces that rival those of many a much +better-known country; the jungle has given place to plantations of +gambier, tea, coffee, and pepper; the few elephant tracks and forest +paths, to a network of macadamized roads and projected railways; +and the native praus, to English-built barks and deeply laden cargo +steamers. + +Two hundred thousand hard-working, money-making Chinese have been +added to the thirty-five thousand Malay aborigines, and the revenue +of this remnant of an empire is far greater than was the revenue of +the original state. + +It remains to be seen whether the young Sultan will follow in the +footsteps of his father and preserve to Johore the distinction of +being, with the one exception of Siam, the only independent native +kingdom in southern Asia. One misstep and he will become but a +dependency of the great British Empire, a king only in name. + + + + + +IN THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE + +A Peep at the City of Singapore + + +Could an American boy, like a prince in the Arabian Nights, be taken by +a genie from his warm bed in San Francisco or New York and awakened +in the centre of Raffles Square, in Singapore, I will wager that +he would be sadly puzzled to even give the name of the continent on +which he had alighted. + +Neither the buildings, the people, or the vehicles would aid him in +the least to decide. + +Enclosing the four sides of the little banian-tree shaded park +in which he stands are rows of brick, white-faced, high-jointed +go-downs. Through their glassless windows great white punkahs swing +back and forth with a ceaseless regularity. Standing outside of each +window, a tall, graceful punkah-wallah tugs at a rattan withe, his +naked limbs shining like polished ebony in the fierce glare of the +Malayan sun. + +For a moment, perhaps, the boy thinks himself in India, possibly at +Simla, for he has read some of Rudyard Kipling's stories. + +Back under the portico-like verandas, whose narrow breadths take the +place of sidewalks, are little booths that look like bay windows turned +inside out. On the floor of each sits a Turk, cross-legged, or an Arab, +surrounded by a heterogeneous assortment of wares, fez caps, brass +finger-bowls, a praying rug, a few boxes of Japanese tooth-picks, some +rare little bottles of Arab essence, a betel-nut box, and a half dozen +piles of big copper cents, for all shopkeepers are money-changers. + +The merchant gathers his flowing party-colored robes about him, +tightens the turban head, and draws calmly at his water-pipe while a +bevy of Hindu and Tamil women bargain for a new stud for their noses, +a showy amulet, or a silver ring for their toes. + +Squatting right in the way of all passers is a Chinese travelling +restaurant that looks like two flour barrels, one filled with drawers, +the other containing a small charcoal fire. The old cookee, with +his queue tied neatly up about his shaven head, takes a variety of +mixtures from the drawers,--bits of dried fish, seaweed, a handful of +spaghetti, possibly a piece of shark's fin, or better still a lump of +bird's nest, places them in the kettle, as he yells from time to time, +"Machen, machen" (eating, eating). + +Next to the Arab booth is a Chinese lamp shop, then a European +dry-goods store, an Armenian law office, a Japanese bazaar, a foreign +consulate. + +A babble of strange sounds and a jargon of languages salute the +astonished boy's ears. + +In the broad well-paved streets about him a Malay syce, or driver, +is trying to urge his spotted Deli pony, which is not larger than a +Newfoundland dog, in between a big, lumbering two-wheeled bullock-cart, +laden with oozing bags of vile-smelling gambier, and a great patient +water buffalo that stands sleepily whipping the gnats from its black, +almost hairless hide, while its naked driver is seated under the +trees in the square quarrelling and gambling by turns. + +The gharry, which resembles a dry-goods box on wheels, set in with +latticed windows, smashes up against the ponderous hubs of the +bullock-cart. The meek-eyed bullocks close their eyes and chew their +cuds, regardless of the fierce screams of the Malay or the frenzied +objurgations of their driver. + +But no one pays any attention to the momentary confusion. A party of +Jews dressed in robes of purple and red that sweep the street pass +by, without giving a glance at the wild plunging of the half-wild +pony. A Singhalese jeweller is showing his rubies and cat's-eyes to +a party of Eurasian, or half-caste clerks, that are taking advantage +of their master's absence from the godown to come out into the court +to smoke a Manila cigarette and gossip. The mottled tortoise-shell +comb in the vender's black hair, and his womanish draperies, give +him a feminine aspect. + +An Indian chitty, or money-lender, stands talking to a brother, +supremely unconscious of the eddying throng about. These chitties are +fully six feet tall, with closely shaven heads and nude bodies. Their +dress of a few yards of gauze wound about their waists, and red +sandals, would not lead one to think that they handle more money +than any other class of people in the East. They borrow from the +great English banks without security save that of their caste name, +and lend to the Eurasian clerks just behind them at twelve per cent +a month. If a chitty fails, he is driven out of the caste and becomes +a pariah. The caste make up his losses. + +Dyaks from Borneo idle by. Parsee merchants in their tall, conical +hats, Chinese rickshaw runners and cart coolies, Tamil road-menders, +Bugis, Achinese, Siamese, Japanese, Madras serving-men, negro firemen, +Lascar sailors, throng the little square,--the agora of the commercial +life of the city. + +Such is Singapore, embracing all the races of Asia and Europe. Is it +any wonder that the American boy is bewildered, standing there under +the great banian tree with a Malay in sarong and kris by his side, +singing with his syrah-stained lips the glorious promises of the Koran? + + + +Look on the map of Asia for the southernmost point of the continent, +and you will find it at the tip of the Malay Peninsula,--a giant +finger that points down into the heart of the greatest archipelago in +the world. At the very end of this peninsula, like a sort of cut-off +joint of the finger, is the little island of Singapore, which is not +over twenty-five miles from east to west, and does not exceed fifteen +miles in width at its broadest point. + +The famous old Straits of Malacca, which were once the haunts of the +fierce Malayan pirates, separate the island from the mainland and +the Sultanate of Johore. + +The shipping that once worked its way through these narrow straits, +in momentary fear that its mangrove-bound shores held a long, swift +pirate prau, now goes further south and into the island-guarded harbor +before Singapore. + +Nothing can be more beautiful than the sea approach to Singapore. As +you enter the Straits, the emerald-green of a bevy of little islands +obstructs the vision, and affords a grateful relief to the almost +blinding glare of the Malayan sky, and the metallic reflections of +the ocean. + +Some seem only inhabited by a graceful waving burden of strange, +tropical foliage, and by a band of chattering monkeys; on others you +detect a Malay kampong, or village, its umbrella-like houses of attap, +close down to the shore, built high up on poles, so that half the time +their boulevards are but vast mud-holes, the other half--Venice, filled +with a moving crowd of sampans and fishing praus. A crowd of bronzed, +naked little figures sport within the shadow of a maze of drying nets, +and flee in consternation as the black, log-like head and cruel, +watchful eyes of a crocodile glide quietly along the mangrove roots. + +On another island you discern the grim breastworks and the frowning +mouth of a piece of heavy ordnance. + +Soon the island of Singapore reveals itself in a long line of dome-like +hills and deep-cut shadows, whose stolid front quickly dissolves. The +tufted tops of a sentinel palm, the wide-spreading arms of the banian, +clumps of green and yellow bamboo, and the fan-shaped outlines of +the traveller's palm become distinguishable. As the great, red, +tropical sun rises from behind the encircling hills, the monotony +of the foliage is relieved in places by objects which it all but hid +from view. The granite minaret of the Mohammedan mosque, the carved +dome of a Buddhist temple, the slender spire of an English cathedral, +the bold projections of Government House, and the wide, white sides +of the Municipal buildings all hold the eye. + +Then a maze of strange shipping screens the nearing shore--the military +masts and yards of British and Dutch men-of-war, the high-heeled, +shoe-like lines of Chinese junks, innumerable Malay and Kling sampans, +and great, unwieldy Borneo tonkangs. + +For six miles along the wharves and for six miles back into the island +extend the municipal limits of the city. Two hundred thousand people +live within these limits; while outside, over the rest of the island +along the sea-coast, in fishing villages, and in the interior on +plantations of tapioca and pepper, live a hundred thousand more. Of +these three hundred thousand over one hundred and seventy thousand +are Chinese and only fifteen hundred are Europeans. + +Grouped about Raffles Square, and facing the Bund, are the great +English, German, and Chinese houses that handle the three hundred +million dollars' worth of imports and exports that pass in and out of +the port yearly, and make Singapore one of the most important marts +of the commercial world. + +Beyond, and back from the Square, is Tanglin, or the suburbs, where +the government officials and the heads of these great firms live in +luxurious bungalows, surrounded by a swarm of retainers. + +Let us drive from Raffles Square through this cosmopolitan city and +out to Tanglin. Beginning at Cavanagh Bridge, at one end of which +stands the great Singapore Club and the Post Office, is the ocean +esplanade,--the pride of the city. It encloses a public playground +of some fifteen acres, reclaimed from the sea at an expense of over +two hundred thousand dollars. Every afternoon when the heat of the +day has fallen from 150 deg. to 80 deg., the European population meets on this +esplanade park to play tennis, cricket, and football, and to promenade, +gossip, and listen to the music of the regimental or man-of-war band. + +The drive from the sea, up Orchard Road to the Botanic Gardens, +carries you by all the diversified life of the city. The Chinese +restaurant is omnipresent. By its side sits a naked little bit of +bronze, with a basket of sugar-cane--each stick, two feet long, cleaned +and scraped, ready for the hungry and thirsty rickshaw coolies, who +have a few quarter cents with which to gratify their appetites. On +every veranda and in every shady corner are the Kling and Chinese +barbers. They carry their barber-shops in a kit or in their pockets, +and the recipient of their skill finds a seat as best he may. The +barber is prepared to shave your head, your face, trim your hair, +braid your queue, and pull the hairs out of your nose and ears. + +There is no special quarter for separate trades. Madras tailor shops +rub shoulders with Malay blacksmith shops, while Indian wash-houses +join Manila cigar manufactories. + +Once past the commercial part of the ride, the great bungalows of the +European and Chinese merchants come into view. The immediate borders +of the road itself reveal nothing but a dense mass of tropical verdure +and carefully cut hedges, but at intervals there is a wide gap in +the hedge, and a road leads off into the seeming jungle. At every +such entrance there are posts of masonry, and a plate bearing the +name of the manor and its owner. + +At the end of a long aisle of palms and banians you see a bit of +wide-spreading veranda, and the full-open doors of a cool, black +interior. Acres of closely shaven lawns, dotted with flowering shrubs +of the brightest reds, deepest purples, and fieriest solferinos, +beds of rich-hued foliage plants, and cool, green masses of ferns +meet your eye. + +Perhaps you spy the inevitable tennis-court, swarming with players, +and bordered with tables covered with tea and sweets. Red-turbaned +Malay kebuns, or gardeners, are chasing the balls, and scrupulously +clean Chinese "boys" are passing silently among the guests with trays +of eatables. + +Dozens of gharries dodge past. Hundreds of rickshaws pull out of +the way. + +A great landau, drawn by a pair of thoroughbred Australian horses, +driven by a Malay syce, and footman in full livery, and containing a +bare-headed Chinese merchant, in the simple flowing garments of his +nation, dashes along. The victoria and the dog-cart of the European, +and the universal palanquin of the Anglo-Indian, form a perfect maze +of wheels. + +Suddenly the road is filled with a long line of bullock-carts. You +swing your little pony sharply to one side, barely escaping the big +wooden hub of the first cart. The syce springs down from behind, +and belabors the native bullock driver, who, paying no attention to +the blows rained upon his naked back, belabors his beasts in turn, +calling down upon their ungainly humps the curses of his religion. The +scene is so familiar that only a "globe-trotter" would notice it. Yet +to me there is nothing more truly artistic, or more typically Indian +in India, than a long line of these bullock-carts, laden with the +products of the tropics,--pineapples, bananas, gambier, coffee,--urged +on by a straight, graceful driver, winding slowly along a palm and +banian shaded road. We would meet such processions at every turning, +but never without recalling glorious childish pictures of the Holy +Land and Bible scenery as we painted them, while our father read of a +Sunday morning out of the old "Domestic Bible,"--we children pronounce +it "Dom-i-stick,"--how the Lord said unto Moses, "Go take twenty fat +bullocks and offer them as a sacrifice." As we would see these "twenty +fat bullocks" time and again, I confess, with a feeling of reluctance, +that some of the gilt and rose tint was rubbed from our childish +pictures, and that a realistic artist drawing from the life before him +would not deck out the patient subject in quite our extravagant colors. + +The color of the Indian bullock varies. Some are a dirty white, +some a cream color, some almost pink, and a few are of the darker +shades. They are about the size of our cows, seldom as large as a +full-grown ox. Their horns, which are generally tipped with curiously +carved knobs, and often painted in colors, are as diversified in +their styles of architecture as are the horns of our cattle, though +they are more apt to be straight and V-shaped. Their necks are always +"bowed to the yoke," to once more use biblical phraseology, and seem +almost to invite its humiliating clasp. Above their front legs is the +mark of their antiquity, the great clumsy, flabby, fleshy, tawny hump, +always swaying from side to side, keeping time to every plodding step +of its sleepy owner. This seemingly useless mountain of flesh serves +as a cushion against which rests a yoke. Not the natty yoke of our +rural districts, but a simple pole, with a pin of wood through each +end, to ride on the outside of the bullocks' necks. The burden comes +against the projecting hump when the team pulls. To the centre of this +yoke is tied, with strong withes of rattan, the pole of a cart, that +in this nineteenth century is generally only to be seen in national +museums, preserved as a relic of the first steps in the art of wagon +building. And yet as a cart it is not to be despised: all the heavy +traffic of the colonies is done within its rude board sides. It has +two wheels, with heavy square spokes that are held on to a ponderous +wooden axle-tree by two wooden pins. A platform bottom rests on the +axle-tree, and two fence-like sides. + +The genie of the cart, the hewer of wood and drawer of water, is a +tall, wiry, bronze-colored Hindu. He has a yard of white gauze about +his waist, and another yard twisted up into a turban on his head. The +dictates of fashion do not interest him. He does not plod along year in +and year out behind his team for the pittance of sixty cents per day, +to squander on the outside of his person. Not he. He has a wife up near +Simla. He hopes to go back next year, and buy a bit of ground back from +the hill on the Allabadd road from his father-in-law, old Mohammed +Mudd. They have cold weather up in Simla, and he knows of a certain +gown he is going to buy of a Chinaman in the bazaar. But his bullocks +lag, and he saws on the gamooty rope that is attached to their noses, +and beats them half consciously with his rattan whip. Ofttimes he will +stand stark upright in the cart for a full half-hour, with his rattan +held above his head in a threatening attitude, and talk on and on to +his animals, apotheosizing their strength and patience, telling them +how they are sacred to Buddha, how they are the companions of man, and +how they shall have an extra chupa of paddy when the sun goes down, +and he has delivered to the merchant sahib on the quay his load of +gambier; or he reproves them for their slowness and want of interest, +and threatens them with the rod, and tells them to look how he holds it +above them. If in the course of the harangue one of the dumb listeners +pauses to pick a mouthful of young lallang grass by the roadside, +the softly crooning tones give place to a shriek of denunciation. + +The agile Kling springs down from his improvised pulpit, and rushes +at the offender, calls him the offspring of a pariah dog, shows him +the rattan, rubs it against his nose, threatening to cut him up with +it into small pieces, and to feed the pieces to the birds. Then he +discharges a volley of blows on the sleek sides of the offender, that +seem to have little more effect than to raise a cloud of tiger gnats, +and to cause the recipient to bite faster at the tender herbs. + +As the bullock-cart that has blocked our way, and at the same time +inspired this description, shambles along down the shady road, and +out of the reach of the syce's arms, the driver slips quietly up the +pole of the cart until a hand rests on either hump, and commences +to talk in a half-aggrieved, half-caressing tone to his team. Our +syce translates. "He say bullock very bad to go to sleep before the +palanquin of the Heaven-Born. If they no be better soon, their souls +will no become men. He say he sorry that they make the great American +sahib angry." + +The singular trio passes on, the driver praising and reprimanding +by turns in the soft, musical tongue of his people, the historic +beasts swinging lazily along, regardless of their illustrious past, +all unconscious of the fact that their names are embalmed in sacred +writ and Indian legend, and rounding a corner of the broad, red road, +are lost to view amid the olive-green shadows of a clump of gently +swaying bamboo. To me, for the moment, they seem to disappear, like +phantoms, into the mists of the dim centuries, from out of which my +imagination has called them forth. + +Soon you are at the wide-open gates of the Botanic Garden. A perfect +riot of strange tropical foliage bursts upon the view. The clean, red +road winds about and among avenues of palms, waringhans, dark green +mangosteens, casuarinas, and the sweet-smelling hibiscus, all alike +covered with a hundred different parasitic vines and ferns. Artificial +lakes and moats are filled with the giant pods of the superb Victoria +regia, and the flesh-colored cups of the lotus. + +In the translucent green twilight of the flower-houses a hundred +varieties of the costly orchids thrive--not costly here. A shipload +can be bought of the natives for three cents apiece. + +Walks carry you out into the dim aisles of the native jungle. Monkeys, +surprised at your footsteps, spring from limb to limb, and swing, +chattering, out of sight in a mass of rubber-vines. Splendid +macadamized roads, that are kept in perfect repair by a force of +naked Hindus and an iron roller drawn by six unwilling, hump-backed +bullocks, spread out over the island in every direction. Leave one at +any point outside the town, and plunge into the bordering jungle, +and you are liable to meet a tiger or a herd of wild boar. The +tigers swim across the straits from the mainland, and occasionally +strike down a Chinaman. It is said that if a Chinaman, a Malay, and +a European are passing side by side through a field, the tiger will +pick out the Chinaman to the exclusion of the other two. + +Acres upon acres of pineapples stretch away on either hand, while +patches of bananas and farms of coffee are interspersed with spice +trees and sago swamps. + +This road system is the secret of the development of the agriculture, +and one of the secrets of the rapid growth of the great English +colonies. Were it not for the great black python, that lies sleeping in +the road in front of you, or the green iguana that hangs in a timboso +tree over your head, or a naked runner pulling a rickshaw, you might +think you were travelling the wide asphaltum streets of Washington. + +The home of the European in Singapore is peculiar to the country. The +parks about their great bungalows are small copies of the Botanic +Gardens--filled with all that is beautiful in the flora of the +East. From five to twenty servants alone are kept to look after its +walks and hedges and lawns. + +A bungalow proper may consist of but a half-dozen rooms, and yet look +like a vast manor house. It is the generous sweep of the verandas +running completely around the house that lends this impression. Behind +its bamboo chicks you retire on your return from the office. The +Chinese "boy" takes your pipe-clayed shoes and cork helmet, and +brings a pair of heelless grass slippers. If a friend drop in, you +never think of inviting him into your richly furnished drawing-room, +but motion him to a long rattan chair, call "Boy, bring the master +a cup of tea," and pass a box of Manila cigars. + +Bungalows are one story high, with a roof of palm thatch, and are +raised above the ground from two to five feet by brick pillars, leaving +an open space for light and air beneath. Nearly every day it rains +for an hour in torrents. The hot, steaming earth absorbs the water, +and the fierce equatorial sun evaporates it, only to return it in a +like shower the next day. So every precaution must be taken against +dampness and dry-rot. + +In every well-ordered bungalow seven to nine servants are an +absolute necessity, while three others are usually added from time +to time. The five elements, if I may so style them, are the "boy," +or boys, the cook and his helpers, the horseman, the water-carrier, +the gardener, and the maid. The adjuncts are the barber, the wash man, +the tailor, and the watchman. In a mild way, you are at the mercy of +these servants. Their duties are fixed by caste, one never intruding +on the work of another. You must have all or none. Still this is +no hardship. Only newcomers ever think, of trying to economize on +servant bills. The record of the thermometer is too appalling, and +you speedily become too dependent on their attentions. + +The Chinese "boy"--he is always the "boy" until he dies--is the +presiding genius of the house. He it is who brings your tea and fruit +to the bedside at 6 A.M., and lays out your evening suit ready for +dinner, puts your studs in your clean shirt, brings your slippers, +knows where each individual article of your wardrobe is kept, and, +in fact, thinks of a hundred and one little comforts you would never +have known of, had he not discovered them. He is your valet de chambre, +your butler, your steward and your general agent, your interpreter and +your directory. He controls the other servants with a rod of iron, +but bows to the earth before the mem, or the master. For his ten +Mexican dollars a month he takes all the burdens from your shoulders, +and stands between you and the rude outside polyglot world. He is +a hero-worshipper, and if you are a Tuan Besar--great man--he will +double his attentions, and spread your fame far and wide among his +brother majordomos. + +But a description of each member of the menage and their duties would +be in a large measure the description of the odd, complex life of +the East. + +The growth of Singapore since its founding by Sir Stamford Raffles +in 1819 would do honor to the growth of one of our Western cities. + +Within three months after the purchase of the ground from the Sultan +of Johore, Raffles wrote to Lord Warren Hastings, the Governor:-- + +"We have a growing colony of nearly five thousand souls," and a little +later one of his successors wrote apologetically to Lord Auckland, +discussing some project relating to Singapore finance;-- + +"These details may appear to your Lordship petty, but then everything +connected with these settlements is petty, except their annual surplus +cost to the Government of India." + +To-day the city and colony has a population of over one million, +and a revenue of five million dollars--a magnificent monument to its +founder's foresight! + +From a commercial and strategic stand-point, the site of the city is +unassailable. When the English and the Dutch divided the East Indies +by drawing a line through the Straits of Malacca,--the English to hold +all north, the Dutch all south,--the crafty Dutchman smiled benignly, +with one finger in the corner of his eye, and went back to his coffee +and tobacco trading in the beautiful islands of Java and Sumatra, +pitying the ignorance of the Englishman, who was contented with the +swampy jungles of an unknown and savage neck of land, little thinking +that inside of a half century all his products would come to this +same despised district for a market, while his own colonies would +retrograde and gradually pass into the hands of the English. + +Singapore is one of the great cities of the world, the centre of all +the East Indian commerce, the key of southern Asia, and one of the +massive links in the armored chain with which Great Britain encircles +the globe. + + + + + +A FIGHT WITH ILLANUM PIRATES + +The Yarn of a Yankee Skipper + + +The Daily Straits Times on the desk before me contained a vivid +word picture of the capture of the British steamship Namoa by three +hundred Chinese pirates, the guns of Hong Kong almost within sight, +and the year of our Lord 1890 just drawing to a close. The report +seemed incredible. + +I pushed the paper across the table to the grizzled old captain +of the Bunker Hill and continued my examination of the accounts of +a half-dozen sailors of whom he was intent on getting rid. By the +time I had signed the last discharge and affixed the consular seal +he had finished the article and put it aside with a contemptuous +"Humph!" expressive of his opinion of the valor of the crew and +officers. I could see that he was anxious for me to give him my +attention while he related one of those long-drawn-out stories of +perhaps a like personal experience. I knew the symptoms and sometimes +took occasion to escape, if business or inclination made me forego +the pleasure. To-day I was in a mood to humor him. + +There is always something deliciously refreshing in a sailor's yarn. I +have listened to hundreds in the course of my consular career, and +have yet to find one that is dull or prosy. They all bear the imprint +of truth, perhaps a trifle overdrawn, but nevertheless sparkling with +the salt of the sea and redolent of the romance of strange people +and distant lands. In listening, one becomes almost dizzy at the +rapidity with which the scene and personnel change. The icebergs and +the aurora borealis of the Arctic give place to the torrid waters +and the Southern Cross of the South Pacific. A volcanic island, an +Arabian desert, a tropical jungle, and the breadth and width of the +ocean serve as the theatre, while a Fiji Islander, an Eskimo, and +a turbaned Arab are actors in a half-hour's tale. In interest they +rival Verne, Kingston, or Marryat. All they lack is skilled hands to +dress them in proper language. + + + +I + +THE CAPTAIN'S YARN + + +The captain helped himself to one of my manilas and began:-- + +I've nothing to say about the fate of the poor fellows on the Namoa, +seeing the captain was killed at the first fire, but it looks to me +like a case of carelessness which was almost criminal. The idea of +allowing three hundred Chinese to come aboard as passengers without +searching them for arms. Why! it is an open bid to pirates. Goes to +show pretty plain that these seas are not cleared of pirates. Sailing +ships nowadays think they can go anywhere without a pound of powder +or an old cutlass aboard, just because there is an English or Dutch +man-of-war within a hundred miles. I don't know what we'd have done +when I first traded among these islands without a good brass swivel +and a stock of percussion-cap muskets. + +Let me see; it was in '58, I was cabin boy on the ship Bangor. Captain +Howe, hale old fellow from Maine, had his two little boys aboard. They +are merchants now in Boston. I've been sailing for them on the Elmira +ever since. We were trading along the coast of Borneo. Those were +great days for trading in spite of the pirates. That was long before +iron steamers sent our good oaken ships to rot in the dockyards of +Maine. Why, in those days you could see a half-dozen of our snug +little crafts in any port of the world, and I've seen more American +flags in this very harbor of Singapore than of any other nation. We +had come into Singapore with a shipload of ice (no scientific ice +factories then), and had gone along the coast of Java and Borneo to +load with coffee, rubber, and spices, for a return voyage. We were +just off Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, and about loaded, when the +captain heard that gold had been discovered somewhere up near the head +of the Rejang. The captain was an adventurous old salt, and decided +to test the truth of the story; so, taking the long-boat and ten men, +he pulled up the Sarawak River to Kuching and got permission of Rajah +Brooke to go up the Rejang on a hunting expedition. The Rajah was +courteous, but tried to dissuade us from the undertaking by relating +that several bands of Dyaks had been out on head-hunting expeditions +of late, and that the mouth of the Rejang was infested by Illanum +pirates. The captain only laughed, and jokingly told Sir James that +if the game proved scarce he might come back and claim the prize +money on a boat-load of pirate heads. + +We started at once,--for the captain let me go; we rowed some sixty +miles along the coast to the mouth of the Rejang; then for four days +we pulled up its snakelike course. It was my first bit of adventure, +and everything was strange and new. The river's course was like a +great tunnel into the dense black jungle. On each side and above we +were completely walled in by an impenetrable growth of great tropical +trees and the iron-like vines of the rubber. The sun for a few hours +each day came in broken shafts down through the foliage, and exposed +the black back of a crocodile, or the green sides of an iguana. Troops +of monkeys swung and chattered in the branches above, and at intervals +a grove of cocoanut broke the monotony of the scenery. Among them we +would land and rest for the day or night, eat of their juicy fruit, +and go on short excursions for game. A roasted monkey, some baked yams, +and a delicious rice curry made up a royal bill of fare, and as the +odor of our tobacco mixed with the breathing perfume of the jungle, +I would fall asleep listening to sea-yarns that sometimes ran back +to the War of 1812. + + + +II + + +At the end of the fifth day we arrived at the head of the Rejang. Here +the river broke up into a dozen small streams and a swamp. A stockade +had been erected, and the Rajah had stationed a small company of +native soldiers under an English officer to keep the head-hunting +Dyaks in check. I don't remember what our captain found out in regard +to the gold fields, at least it was not encouraging; for he gave up +the search and joined the English lieutenant in a grand deer-hunt +that lasted for five days, and then started back accompanied by two +native soldiers bearing despatches to the Rajah. + +It was easy running down the river with the current. One man in each +end of the boat kept it off roots, sunken logs, and crocodiles, and the +rest of us spent the time as best our cramped space allowed. Twice +we detected the black, ugly face of a Dyak peering from out the +jungle. The men were for hunting them down for the price on their +heads, but the captain said he never killed a human being except in +self-defence, and that if the Rajah wanted to get rid of the savages he +had better give the contract to a Mississippi slave-trader. Secretly, +I was longing for some kind of excitement, and was hoping that the +men's clamorous talk would have some effect. I never doubted our +ability to raid a Dyak village and kill the head-hunters and carry off +the beautiful maidens. I could not see why a parcel of blacks should +be such a terror to the good Rajah, when Big Tom said he could easily +handle a dozen, and flattered me by saying that such a brawny lad as +I ought to take care of two at least. + +In the course of three days we reached the mouth of the river, and +prepared the sail for the trip across the bay to the Bangor. Just as +everything was in readiness, one of those peculiar and rapid changes +in the weather, that are so common here in the tropics near the +equator, took place. A great blue-black cloud, looking like an immense +cartridge, came up from the west. Through it played vivid flashes of +lightning, and around it was a red haze. "A nasty animal," I heard the +bo's'n tell the captain, and yet I was foolishly delighted when they +decided to risk a blow and put out to sea. The sky on all sides grew +darker from hour to hour. A smell of sulphur came to our nostrils. It +was oppressively hot; not a breath of wind was stirring. The sail +flapped uselessly against the mast, and the men labored at the oars, +while streams of sweat ran from their bodies. + +The captain had just taken down the mast, when, without a moment's +warning, the gale struck us and the boat half filled with water. We +managed to head it with the wind, and were soon driving with the +rapidity of a cannon-ball over the boiling and surging waters. It was +a fearful gale; we blew for hours before it, ofttimes in danger of a +volcanic reef, again almost sunk by a giant wave. I baled until I was +completely exhausted. But the long-boat was a stanch little craft, and +there were plenty of men to manage it, so as long as we could keep her +before the wind, the captain felt no great anxiety as to our safety. + + + +III + + +At about six bells in the afternoon, the wind fell away, and the +rain came down in torrents, leaving us to pitch about on the rapidly +decreasing waves, wet to the skin and unequal to another effort. We +were within a mile of a rocky island that rose like a half-ruined +castle from the ocean. The Dyak soldiers called it Satang Island, +and I have sailed past it many a time since. Without waiting for +the word, we rowed to it and around it, before we found a suitable +beach on which to land. One end of the island rose precipitous and +sheer above the beach a hundred feet, and ended in a barren plateau +of some two dozen acres. The remainder comprised some hundred acres +of sand and rocks, on which were half a dozen cocoanut trees and a +few yams. Along the beach we found a large number of turtles' eggs. + +The captain, remembering the Rajah's caution in regard to pirates, +decided not to make a light, but we were wet and hungry and overcame +his scruples, and soon had a huge fire and a savory repast of coffee, +turtles' eggs, and yams. At midnight it was extinguished, and a +watch stationed on top of the plateau. Toward morning I clambered +grumblingly up the narrow, almost perpendicular sides of the rift +that cut into the rocky watch-tower. I did not believe in pirates +and was willing to take my chances in sleep. I paced back and forth, +inhaling deep breaths of the rich tropical air; below me the waves +beat in ripples against the rugged beach, casting off from time to +time little flashes of phosphorescent light, and mirroring in their +depths the hardly distinguishable outline of the Southern Cross. The +salt smell of the sea was tinged with the spice-laden air of the +near coast. Drowsiness came over me. I picked up a musket and paced +around the little plateau. The moon had but just reached its zenith, +making all objects easily discernible. The smooth storm-swept space +before me reflected back its rays like a well-scrubbed quarter-deck; +below were the dark outlines of my sleeping mates. I could hear the +light wind rustling through the branches of the casuarina trees that +fringed the shore. I paused and looked over the sea. Like a charge +of electricity a curious sensation of fear shot through me. Then an +intimation that some object had flashed between me and the moon. I +rubbed my eyes and gazed in the air above, expecting to see a night +bird or a bat. Then the same peculiar sensation came over me again, +and I looked down in the water below just in time to see the long, +keen, knife-like outline of a pirate prau glide as noiselessly as a +shadow from a passing cloud into the gloom of the island. Its great, +wide-spreading, dark red sails were set full to the wind, and hanging +over its sides by ropes were a dozen naked Illanums, guiding the +sensitive craft almost like a thing of life. Within the prau were +two dozen fighting men, armed with their alligator hide buckler, +long, steel-tipped spear, and ugly, snake-like kris. A third prau +followed in the wake of the other two, and all three were lost in +the blackness of the overhanging cliffs. + + + +With as little noise as possible, I ran across the plain and warned my +companion, then picked my way silently down the defile to the camp. The +captain responded to my touch and was up in an instant. The men were +awakened and the news whispered from one to another. Gathering up +what food and utensils we possessed, we hurried to get on top of +the plateau before our exact whereabouts became known. The captain +hoped that when they discovered we were well fortified and there was +no wreck to pillage, they would withdraw without giving battle. They +had landed on the opposite side of the island from our boat and might +leave it undisturbed. We felt reasonably safe in our fortress from +attacks. There were but two breaks in its precipitous sides, each a +narrow defile filled with loose boulders that could easily be detached +and sent thundering down on an assailant's head. On the other hand, +our shortness of food and water made us singularly weak in case of +siege. But we hoped for the best. Two men were posted at each defile, +and as nothing was heard for an hour, most of us fell asleep. + + + +IV + + +It was just dawn, when we were awakened by the report of two muskets +and the terrific crashing of a great boulder, followed by groans +and yells. With one accord we rushed to the head of the canon. +The Illanums, naked, with the exception of party-colored sarongs +around their waists, with their bucklers on their left arms and +their gleaming knives strapped to their right wrists, were mounting +on each other's shoulders, forcing a way up the precipitous defile, +unmindful of the madly descending rocks that had crushed and maimed +more than one of their number. They were fine, powerful fellows, with +a reddish brown skin that shone like polished ebony. Their hair was +shorn close to their heads; they had high cheek bones, flat noses, +syrah-stained lips, and bloodshot eyes. In their movements they were +as lithe and supple as a tiger, and commanded our admiration while +they made us shudder. We knew that they neither give nor take quarter, +and for years had terrorized the entire Bornean coast. + +We were ready to fire, but a gesture from the captain restrained us; +our ammunition was low, and he wished to save it until we actually +needed it. By our united efforts we pried off two of the volcanic +rocks, which, with a great leap, disappeared into the darkness below, +oftentimes appearing for an instant before rushing to the sea. Every +time an Illanum fell we gave a hearty American cheer, which was +answered by savage yells. Still they fought on and up, making little +headway. We were gradually relaxing our efforts, thinking that they +were sick of the affair, when the report of a musket from the opposite +side of the island called our attention to the bo's'n, who had been +detailed to guard the other defile. + +The bo's'n and one native soldier were fighting hand to hand with a +dozen pirates who were forcing their way up the edge of the cliff. Half +of the men dashed to their relief just in time to see the soldier go +over the precipice locked in the arms of a giant Illanum. One volley +from our muskets settled the hopes of the invaders. + +Our little party was divided, and we were outnumbered ten to one. One +of the sailors in dislodging a boulder lost his footing and went +crashing down with it amid the derisive yells of the pirates. Suddenly +the conflict ceased and the pirates withdrew. In a short time we +could see them building a number of small fires along the beach, and +the aroma of rice curry came up to us with the breeze. The captain, I +could see, was anxious, although my boyish feelings did not go beyond +a sense of intoxicating excitement. I heard him say that nothing but +a storm or a ship could save us in case we were besieged; that it +was better to have the fight out at once and die with our arms in +our hands than to starve to death. + +Giving each a small portion of ship biscuit and a taste of water, +he enjoined on each a careful watchfulness and a provident use of +our small stock of provisions. + +I took mine in my hand and walked out on the edge of the cliff somewhat +sobered. Directly below me were the pirates, and at my feet I noticed +a fragment of rock that I thought I could loosen. Putting down my food, +I foolishly picked up a piece of timber which I used as a lever, when, +without warning, the mass broke away, and with a tremendous bound +went crashing down into the very midst of the pirates, scattering +them right and left, and ended by crushing one of the praus that was +drawn up on the sand. + +In an instant the quiet beach was a scene of the wildest confusion. A +surging, crowding mass of pirates with their krises between their +teeth dashed up the canon, intent on avenging their loss. I dropped +my lever and rushed back to the men, nearly frightened to death at +the result of my temerity. There was no time for boulders; the men +reached the brink of the defile just in time to welcome the assailants +with a broadside. Their lines wavered, but fresh men took the places +of the fallen, and they pushed on. Another volley from our guns, +and the dead and wounded encumbered the progress of the living. A +shower of stones and timbers gave us the light, and they withdrew +with savage yells to open the siege once more. Only one of our men +had been wounded,--he by an arrow from a blowpipe. + + + +V + + +All that night we kept watch. The next morning we were once more +attacked, but successfully defended ourselves with boulders and our +cutlasses. Yet one swarthy pirate succeeded in catching the leg of +the remaining native soldier and bearing him away with them. With +cessation of hostilities, we searched the top of the island for food +and water. At one side of the tableland there was a break in its +surface and a bench of some dozen acres lay perhaps twenty feet below +our retreat. We cautiously worked our way down to this portion and +there to our delight found a number of fan-shaped traveller's palms +and monkey-cups full of sweet water, which with two wild sago palms +we calculated would keep us alive a few days at all events. + +We were much encouraged at this discovery, and that night collected +a lot of brush from the lower plain and lit a big fire on the +most exposed part of the rocks. We did not care if it brought a +thousand more pirates as long as it attracted the attention of a +passing ship. Two good nine-pounders would soon send our foes in all +directions. We relieved each other in watching during the night, and +by sunrise we were all completely worn out. The third day was one of +weariness and thirst under the burning rays of the tropical sun. That +day we ate the last of our ship biscuit and were reduced to a few +drops of water each. Starvation was staring us in the face. There +was but one alternative, and that was to descend and make a fight +for our boat on the beach. The bo's'n volunteered with three men to +descend the defile and reconnoitre. Armed only with their cutlasses +and a short axe, they worked their way carefully down in the shadow +of the rocks, while we kept watch above. + +All was quiet for a time; then there arose a tumult of cries, oaths, +and yells. The captain gave the order, and pell-mell down the rift +we clambered, some dropping their muskets in their hurried descent, +one of which exploded in its fall. The bo's'n had found the beach +and our boat guarded by six pirates, who were asleep. Four of these +they succeeded in throttling. We pushed the boat into the surf, +expecting every moment to see one of the praus glide around the +projecting reef that separated the two inlets. We could plainly +hear their cries and yells as they discovered our escape, and with +a "heigh-ho-heigh!" our long-boat shot out into the placid ocean, +sending up a shower of phosphorescent bubbles. We bent our backs to +the oars as only a question of life or death can make one. With each +stroke the boat seemed almost to lift itself out of the water. Almost +at the same time a long dark line, filled with moving objects, dashed +out from the shadow of the cliffs, hardly a hundred yards away. + +It was a glorious race over the dim waters of that tropical sea. I +as a boy could not realize what capture meant at the hands of our +cruel pursuers. My heart beat high, and I felt equal to a dozen +Illanums. My thoughts travelled back to New England in the midst of +the excitement. I saw myself before the open arch fire in a low-roofed +old house, that for a century had withstood the fiercest gales on the +old Maine coast, and from whose doors had gone forth three generations +of sea-captains. I saw myself on a winter night relating this very +story of adventure to an old gray-haired, bronzed-faced father, and +a mother whose parting kiss still lingered on my lips, to my younger +brother, and sister. I could feel their undisguised admiration as I +told of my fight with pirates in the Bornean sea. It is wonderful how +the mind will travel. Yet with my thoughts in Maine, I saw and felt +that the Illanums were gradually gaining on us. Our men were weary +and feeble from two days' fasting, while the pirates were strong, +and thirsting for our blood. + +The captain kept glancing first at the enemy and then at a musket +that lay near him. He longed to use it, but not a man could be spared +from the oars. Hand over hand they gained on us. Turning his eyes on +me as I sat in the bow, the captain said, while he bent his sinewy +back to the oar, "Jack, are you a good shot?" + +I stammered, "I can try, sir." + +"Very well, get the musket there in the bow. It is loaded. Take good +aim and shoot that big fellow in the stern. If you hit him, I'll make +you master of a ship some day." + +Tremblingly I raised the heavy musket as directed. The boat was +unsteady, I hardly expected to hit the chief, but aimed low, hoping +to hit one of the rowers at least. I aimed, closed my eyes, and +fired. With the report of the musket the tall leader sprang into the +air and then fell head fore-most amid his rowers. I could just detect +the gleam of the moonlight on the jewelled handle of his kris as it +sank into the waters. I had hit my man. The sailors sent up a hearty +American cheer and a tiger, as they saw the prau come to a standstill. + +Our boat sprang away into the darkness. We did not cease rowing until +dawn,--then we lay back on our oars and stretched our tired backs +and arms. I had taken my place at the oar during the night. + +Away out on the northern horizon we saw a black speck; on the southern +horizon another. The captain's glass revealed one to be the pirate +prau with all sails set, for a wind had come up with the dawn. The +other we welcomed with a cheer, for it was the Bangor. Enfeebled +and nearly famishing, we headed toward it and rowed for life. How we +regretted having left our sails on the island. The prau had sighted +us and was bearing down in full pursuit; we soon could distinguish +its wide-spreading, rakish sails almost touching the water as it +sped on. Then we made out the naked forms of the Illanums hanging +to the ropes, far out over the water, and then we could hear their +blood-curdling yell. It was too late; their yell was one of baffled +rage. It was answered by the deep bass tones of the swivel on board the +Bangor sending a ball skimming along over the waters, which, although +it went wide of its mark, caused the natives on the ropes to throw +themselves bodily across the prau, taking the great sail with them. + +In another instant the red sail, the long, keen, black shell, the +naked forms of the fierce Illanums, were mixed in one undefinable +blot on the distant horizon. + +And that was the skipper's yarn. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Tales of the Malayan Coast, by Rounsevelle Wildman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF THE MALAYAN COAST *** + +***** This file should be named 27784.txt or 27784.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/7/8/27784/ + +Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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