BABOO'S GOOD TIGER 
 "Baboo catch tail, run too " (see page 26) 
 
^ TALES OF 
 THE MALAYAN COAST 
 
 From Penang to the Philippines 
 
 BY 
 
 ROUNSEVELLE V^ILDMAN 
 
 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. Gushing & Co. Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 
 
"PS 
 
 3319 
 
 3 
 
 TO 
 
 ur Ifyzw 
 
 AND MY FRIEND 
 
 ADMIRAL GEORGE DEWEY, U.S.N. 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 Flagship Olympia, 
 Manila, 21 Sept,, 1898. 
 
 MY DEAR WILDMAN : 
 
 Yours of 1 2th 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 atmos- 
 phere 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 Agui- 
 
 5 
 
6 Preface 
 
 naldo 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 Amer- 
 ican 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! . ioi 
 
 Lepas's Revenge . . . . .13 
 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 
 
 7 
 
TALES OF THE MALAYAN COAST 
 
 FROM PENANG TO THE PHILIPPINES 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 
 ft ale of tlje Malacca jungle 
 
 A BOO DIN'S first-born, Baboo, was only 
 '* * four years old when he had his fa- 
 mous 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 
 
 9 
 
io Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 bunga- 
 low. 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 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 
 
 as Aboo Din took down the rattan withe from 
 above the door, "Baboo baniak jahatl " (Baboo 
 very bad !) and there was something "so charm- 
 ingly impersonal in all his mischief, that we 
 came between his own brown body and the 
 rod, time and again. There was nothing dis- 
 tinctive 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 compan- 
 ions, 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 
 
12 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 sandal- 
 wood 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 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 13 
 
 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. 
 
14 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 chat- 
 ting in our long chairs behind the bamboo 
 chicks, the cries of " Harimau I Harimau ! " 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 15 
 
 and " Baboo " came up to us from the 
 servants 1 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 them- 
 selves 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. 
 
1 6 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 shikar is , 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. 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 17 
 
 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 pen- 
 dants 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, gaz- 
 ing 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 
 
1 8 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 sev- 
 eral 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 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 19 
 
 Malayan tiger ! How else explain his impos- 
 sible 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 lamen- 
 tations, while the last remaining cur took ad- 
 vantage of his preoccupation to sneak back 
 on the homeward trail. 
 
2o Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 " Aboo," I commanded sarcastically, "per- 
 gie I (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 wab-wab 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 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 21 
 
 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 cocoa- 
 nut. 
 
 " 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 con- 
 tentment, 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 
 
22 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 known that a tiger who has eaten to repletior 
 is both timid and lazy. This one had cer 
 tainly breakfasted on a dog or on some ani 
 mal before encountering Baboo. 
 
 I had hoped that possibly the barking oi 
 the curs might have caused him to drop th< 
 child, and make off where pursuit would b< 
 impossible ; but so far we had, after those foot 
 prints, found neither traces of Baboo alive 
 nor the blood which should have been seer 
 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 cocoanu 
 tree, and there was no mangrove nearer thar 
 the lagoon. 
 
 A Malay looked up sleepily, and pointec 
 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 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 23 
 
 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 mon- 
 key, 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. Be- 
 fore 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." 
 
24 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
 Allah ! " 
 
 Aboo snatched forth his arm with a howl 
 of pain. One of his fingers was bleeding pro- 
 fusely, and the marks of tiny teeth showed 
 plainly where Baboo had closed them on the 
 offending hand. 
 
 " Biak, Baboo, maril " (Good, come forth!) 
 
 1 said. 
 
 First the round, soft face of the small mis- 
 creant 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. 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 25 
 
 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 fel- 
 low in his arms, I turned to Baboo and said, 
 while I tried to be severe, 
 
 " Baboo, where is tiger ? " 
 
 "Sudab 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 
 
26 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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. 
 
 " Kucbing 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 kuch- 
 ing must go back. Kuching pick Baboo up 
 in mouth when Baboo let go. 
 
 " Kuching hurt Baboo. Baboo stick fin- 
 gers 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 
 
Baboo's Good Tiger 27 
 
 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 tha^ 
 in his heart he was more grateful that for once 
 he had evaded a whipping than for his remark- 
 able escape. A little later the pungbulo 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 
 atotoenture in tfie parang Hi 
 
 A AHERE 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 
 
 28 
 
Baboo's Pirates 29 
 
 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, be- 
 stowing on him the title the Malays of 
 Kampong Glam had given him as a perpet- 
 ual 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 
 
30 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 simu- 
 lated 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 pos- 
 session 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 dis- 
 gust of Aboo Din, the syce. 
 
BABOO AND THE SIKH 
 
 " It was as though an elephant had been worried by a 
 pariah cur ' ' 
 
Baboo's Pirates 31 
 
 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 Kam- 
 pong 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 admir- 
 ing shopkeepers, syces, kebuns, and fisher- 
 
32 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 men, narrating for the hundredth time how 
 he had been caught at Changi 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 
 
Baboo's Pirates 33 
 
 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, mo- 
 notonous 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 cir- 
 cle 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 
 
34 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 pos- 
 sible 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, 
 
Baboo's Pirates 35 
 
 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 unpro- 
 tected, bearing the American flag. 
 
 For an hour or more we ran along be- 
 
36 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 tween 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 
 
Baboo's Pirates 37 
 
 a colony of long-armed wah-wab 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, mutter- 
 ing something about the Heaven-Born being 
 
38 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 all wise, and later I saw him in deep con- 
 verse 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 
 
Baboo's Pirates 39 
 
 rather than to my Malay's superior knowl- 
 edge for our safety during the night. 
 
 I found out later that the cunning in 
 Baboo's small brown ringer 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 
 
40 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 be- 
 tween me and the fireflies. 
 
 The first half-lights of morning were strug- 
 gling down through the green canopy above 
 when I was brought to my feet by the dis- 
 charge 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. 
 
Baboo's Pirates 41 
 
 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 : 
 
 " J a g a biak y biak, Tuan (be careful, Tuan), 
 pirates ! " 
 
 I recognized Aboo Din's voice, and I 
 checked myself just as my feet came in con- 
 tact 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, how- 
 ever, 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, doubt- 
 ing my senses, for each time one of the 
 invaders reached the deck he sprang into 
 the air with the long, thrilling cry of pain 
 
42 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 re- 
 vealed 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." 
 
Baboo's Pirates 43 
 
 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 pad- 
 dling 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 
 
44 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 now. Baboo's pirates, the dreaded Orang 
 Kayah's rebels, were the troop of monkeys 
 we had heard the night before in the tam- 
 busa 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's Pirates 45 
 
 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 adven- 
 ture into the green waters. 
 
46 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 tlje >trait$ of 
 
 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 ser- 
 
 47 
 
48 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 vants were members of the family ; that the 
 ton of impedimenta was the flotsam of the 
 sea; that the Eurasian keeper and his at- 
 tendants were cannibals ; but we closed our 
 eyes to all disturbing elements, and only re- 
 membered 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 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 49 
 
 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-spread- 
 ing 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." 
 
50 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 "Well, let the ice melt," I replied. "Rob- 
 inson 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 I " (Lord.) 
 
 "Well, he was a Tuan who lived for thirty 
 years without once eating chocolate 'puddlin'.' 
 We'll not eat any /or 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 sil- 
 ver 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 ar- 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 51 
 
 chipelago. All about us are verdure-covered 
 islands. They are now the homes of native 
 fishermen, but a century ago they were hid- 
 ing-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 hun- 
 dred 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, form- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 tection of the almond tree, and watch the 
 sun sink slowly to a level with the masts of 
 
52 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 a bark that is bound for Java and the Bor- 
 nean 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. 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 53 
 
 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 em- 
 bers 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. 
 
54 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 t 
 or village of Malays, under an old pungbulo, 
 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 nar- 
 row walled inlet, and found ourselves for the 
 first time in a mangrove swamp. The trees 
 all seemed to be growing on stilts. A per- 
 fect 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 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 55 
 
 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 pungbulo'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. 
 
56 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 bunga- 
 low, 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 bam- 
 boo, and was elastic to the foot, causing a 
 sensation which at first made us step care- 
 fully. The open places left by the crossing 
 of the bamboo slats were a great conven- 
 ience to the pungbulo 's wives, as they could 
 sweep all the refuse of the house through 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 57 
 
 them ; they might also be a great accommo- 
 dation to the funghulo 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 pungbulas 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 jrjyr^-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 pung- 
 hulo 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 gar- 
 ment called a kabaya. The married women 
 
5 8 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 paints the cocoa, the sago, the ga- 
 mooty, 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 water- 
 proof. 
 
 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 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 59 
 
 against the opium of the Chinese and the 
 tobacco of the European. 
 
 As soon as we shook hands ceremoniously 
 with the fungbulo 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. An- 
 other 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 in- 
 vitation 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 
 
60 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 every- 
 thing 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 ap- 
 proached. 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 pres- 
 ents of fish and fruit. 
 
 Almost every day after that did we visit 
 the kampong, and were always welcomed in the 
 same cordial manner. 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 61 
 
 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.) cc How big your coun- 
 try ? " I tried to explain. He listened for 
 a moment. " Big as Negri Blanda ? " (Hol- 
 land.) I laughed. " A thousand times 
 larger ! " The old fellow shook his head 
 sadly, and looked at me reproachfully. 
 
 "Tidab! Tidab/" (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 circu- 
 lated in Java to make the natives think that 
 Holland is the greatest nation on earth. 
 
62 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 One day glided into another with surpris- 
 ing 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 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 63 
 
 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 na- 
 tives. We had one fried. Its meat was 
 perfectly white, and tasted like a tallow 
 candle. 
 
 The day on which we were to leave, 
 
64 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 beauti- 
 ful ! How much you pay ? " I was stag- 
 gered for the moment, and made him repeat 
 his question. This time I could not mis- 
 take 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 im- 
 pression of a happy ten days that will ever 
 be remembered as one more of those glori- 
 ous, Oriental chapters in our lives which are 
 filled with the gorgeous colors of crimson 
 
How we Played Robinson Crusoe 65 
 
 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 inter- 
 est as the years roll by 
 
 
The Sarong 
 
 Cljief 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 ringer 
 into the very heart of the greatest archipel- 
 ago 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. Civil- 
 ization has introduced many articles of cloth- 
 ing ; but no matter how many of these are 
 adopted, the Malay, from his Highness the 
 Sultan of Johore, to the poorest fisherman 
 
 66 
 
The Sarong 67 
 
 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 to- 
 gether 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 connec- 
 tion 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 
 
68 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 ^//^-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 fungbulO) 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 brill- 
 iantly colored threads. The sharp bang of 
 the dark, kamooning-wood bar drove the 
 
The Sarong 69 
 
 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 
 jryr^-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 giv- 
 
7o Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 ing in exchange a pearl-handled penknife, 
 which the chief took, with many a touch of 
 his forehead, " as a remembrance of the con- 
 descension of the Orang American Rajab" 
 
 Wahpering's wife was not dressed to re- 
 ceive us, for we had come swiftly up the 
 dim lagoon, over which her home was built, 
 and had landed on the sandy beach unan- 
 nounced. Had she known that we were 
 coming, she would have been dressed as be- 
 came the wife of the Pungbulo 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 
 cbumpaka. 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 dress- 
 
The Sarong 
 
 ing-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 y 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, re- 
 galing 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 foli- 
 age to a cinder. Even the sharp, insistent 
 whir of the cicada ceases when the ther- 
 mometer on the sunny side of our palm- 
 
72 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 thatched bungalow reaches 155. 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 hand- 
 kerchief, 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 Sarong 
 
 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 ele- 
 phant path through the dense jungle. 
 
 The checks, in its design, although indis- 
 tinguishable to the European, differ accord- 
 ing 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 
 ijoto tlje spalai?0 use it 
 
 IN an old dog-eared copy of Monteith's 
 Geography, I remember a picture of a 
 half-dozen pirate prahus attacking a merchant- 
 man 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 
 
 74 
 
The Kris 75 
 
 did I know then of the acres of bewildering 
 mangrove swamps rilled 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 hand- 
 somer kris than those used by the actors in 
 that much-studied picture of my youth. 
 The sheath and handle are of solid gold 
 
76 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 sur- 
 face is damascened with as much care as was 
 ever taken with the old swords of Damas- 
 cus. It is only an inch in width and a foot 
 in length and does not look half as danger- 
 ous as a Turkish cimeter ; yet it has a his- 
 tory that would put that of the tomahawk 
 or the scalping-knife to shame. Many a 
 fat Chinaman, trading between the Java is- 
 lands 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 
 
The Kris 
 
 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 im- 
 portance among the Malays, and ofttimes he 
 
78 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
THE MAKING OF THE KRIS 
 
 " He fashions it from well-hammered and well-tempered 
 Celebes iron " 
 
The Kris 79 
 
 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 y too, has its etiquette. It is al- 
 ways 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. 
 
8o Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 The kris as a weapon of offence and de- 
 fence 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 
 ^Founding of >aratoab 
 
 TN 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 English- 
 men, yet the countless islands of the vast 
 Malayan archipelago are populated by a hun- 
 dred 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 
 
 81 
 
82 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 nine- 
 teenth 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 ex- 
 terminated them to the last man ; and just 
 then the sound of heavy cannonading in 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 83 
 
 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- 
 wallab, 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 Gymkahna 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 Gymkahna 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 
 
84 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 grand- 
 stand 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 na- 
 tives in a dozen different tongues. The 
 Rajah leaned out over the gayly decorated 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 85 
 
 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, Bur- 
 mese, and Lascar, recognized the famous 
 White Rajah of Borneo, the man who, all 
 unaided, had broken the power of the sav- 
 age 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 sangui- 
 
86 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 nary 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/ 1 the Rajah replied to his 
 Highnesses introduction. " It was your great 
 republic that first recognized the indepen- 
 dence of Sarawak." 
 
 As we chatted over the triumph of Glad- 
 stone, 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 popu- 
 lation to orderly tax-paying citizens, cleared 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 87 
 
 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 tre- 
 mendous 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, 
 
88 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 mill- 
 ions 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 rilled with dreams of 
 an East-Indian empire ; he was burning to 
 emulate Cortez and Pizarro, without prac- 
 tising 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 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 89 
 
 had travelled through India, Malaya, and 
 China, and had written a journal of his wan- 
 derings. 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 opera- 
 tions, 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 men- 
 aced by the fierce, head-hunting Dyaks of 
 the interior. Brooke's chance had come. 
 
90 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 re- 
 fused to allow the Rajah to torture the pris- 
 oners, thereby winning their gratitude, 
 and he refused to be dismissed from his 
 office. He had won his rank, and he ap- 
 pealed to the Sultan. The wily Sultan rec- 
 ognized 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 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 91 
 
 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 be- 
 cause the reigning Sultan relinquished a part 
 of his dominions that he was unable to con- 
 trol. The tasks to be accomplished before he 
 could make his word law were ones that Eng- 
 land, 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 prac- 
 tised 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 schoolhouses, and waged war, single- 
 handed, against head-hunting and piracy. 
 
92 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 can- 
 non, and acknowledged neither the suze- 
 rainty of the Sultan or the domination of the 
 Dutch. They were stronger than the native 
 rulers, and no European nation would go 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 93 
 
 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 win- 
 ning 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 
 
94 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 con- 
 versed 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. 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 95 
 
 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 hunt- 
 ing the Chinese like a pack of bloodhounds. 
 
 In 1848 Rajah Brooke decided to visit his 
 old home in England, and ask his country- 
 men 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 Bal- 
 moral Castle, knighted by the Queen, made 
 Consul-General of Borneo, Governor of La- 
 
96 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 buan, 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 grace- 
 ful 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, 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 97 
 
 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 start- 
 ling 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 ad- 
 
98 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 venture 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 sepa- 
 rates 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 
 
The White Rajah of Borneo 99 
 
 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 Sara- 
 wak 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, 
 
ioo Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 pres- 
 ence of one of the great ones of the earth. 
 
Amok ! 
 
 TF you run amok in Malaya, you may per- 
 - haps 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 be- 
 friended. The laws are as immutable as fate. 
 
 Just where the great river Maur empties 
 its vast volume of red water across a shift- 
 ing 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. 
 
 101 
 
102 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
Amok ! 103 
 
 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 badji and 
 then some day who knows Noa might 
 become a kateeb in the ^//^-thatched mosque 
 back of the palace. 
 
 And Noa, unmindful of his father's dream- 
 ing, played with the little Prince, kicking 
 the ragga ball, or sailing miniature praus out 
 into the river, and off toward the shimmer- 
 ing straits. But often they sat cross-legged 
 and dropped bits of chicken and fruit be- 
 tween the palm sleepers of the wharf to the 
 birch-colored crocodiles below, who snapped 
 them up, one after another, never taking 
 
iO4 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 child- 
 hood 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 pro- 
 testations and deep-drawn sighs. 
 
 " But who cares," he thought. " It is the 
 will of Allah ! The Prince will surely re- 
 member us when he returns." 
 
Amok ! 105 
 
 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 bunga- 
 low 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. 
 
io6 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 jryr^-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. 
 
Amok ! 107 
 
 " Soon my teeth, which the American lady 
 that was visiting his Excellency said were so 
 strong and beautiful, will be filed and black- 
 ened, and I will be weaving sarongs for 
 Noa." 
 
 She shuddered, she knew not why, and 
 went slowly across the elastic bamboo strips 
 o/ 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 syrab 
 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 man- 
 ner 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 
 
io8 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 question, if she had been as hideous as his 
 sister, who was scarred with the small-pox. 
 He would never have complained if, accord- 
 ing to Malayan custom, he had not been per- 
 mitted 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 badji ; 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 bunga- 
 low to keep off white ants, and her cheeks 
 glowed yet under her brown skin at the re- 
 membrance. Noa had never told her she 
 was beautiful ! 
 
 A featherless hen was scratching in the 
 yellow sand at her feet, and a brood of 
 
Amok ! 109 
 
 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 pungbulo" 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 cap- 
 tain, made bold to ask his Excellency to let 
 the Prince be present, and he granted our 
 prayer." 
 
 She turned away to hide her disappoint- 
 ment. 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 
 
no Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 dancing in his eyes ! She hated him then 
 for his very love ; it was so sure and confi- 
 dent 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 ques- 
 tioned, 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 
 
Amok ! in 
 
 to go to London, where he would be enter- 
 tained by the Queen. 
 
 Above their heads the wind played with 
 the tattered flags of the palms, leaving open- 
 ings 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 won- 
 dered 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 her- 
 self, something inherited from ancestors 
 
H2 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 nar- 
 row, 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 rever- 
 ence her husband ? " 
 
 " Why ? " she questioned angrily. 
 
 He paused a moment, trying dimly to 
 comprehend the question, and then an- 
 swered slowly, 
 
Amok ! 
 
 "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 her- 
 self 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 won- 
 dered why every one must be married, why 
 could she not go on and live just as she 
 had, she could weave and sew? 
 
H4 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
Amok! 
 
 festoons from the deep verandas of the pal- 
 ace, 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 Lieu- 
 tenant of his Highness's artillery. In the 
 front of his rimless cap shone the arms of 
 
n6 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 build- 
 ing 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 
 
Amok ! 
 
 117 
 
 hot, red streets, filled with lumbering bul- 
 lock-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 y 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 ? " 
 
n8 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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. Sudab ! " 
 
 "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 pung- 
 hulo, 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. 
 
Amok! 
 
 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 pung- 
 hulo s home on his way into the jungle in 
 search of a tiger, and inquired for his daugh- 
 ter. 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 endeav- 
 ors of a chameleon to change his color, as 
 the shadows painted the sand beneath him 
 first green and then white, that her own 
 
120 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 pas- 
 sion, 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 pungbuto's, dowry ? " 
 
 And yet Noa felt that Anak knew what 
 he would have said. 
 
Amok! 121 
 
 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, un- 
 known 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. 
 
122 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 She submitted to the tire-women who 
 were to prepare her for the ceremony, utter- 
 ing 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 cbumpaka 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 sam- 
 buh) within easy reach of all, luscious man- 
 gosteens, creamy durians and mangoes, and 
 betel-nuts with lemon leaves and lime and 
 
Amok! 123 
 
 spices. Fires burned about among the grace- 
 ful palms at night, and lit up the silken sa- 
 rongs 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 in- 
 wardly cursed the customs of his people 
 that destroyed the beauty of its women. 
 He had lived among the English of Singa- 
 pore, 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 
 
124 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 
 
Amok! 125 
 
 brown eyes before him. The 
 lips were slightly parted, exposing the fever- 
 ish 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 shud- 
 der 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 krtSy and with one bound was across 
 the floor, and on the sand below among 
 the revellers. 
 
i 2 6 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
Amok! 
 
 127 
 
 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 quiver- 
 ing 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 com- 
 passionate." 
 
 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. 
 
128 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 "Sudab! It is finished/' and a Malay 
 raised his steel-bladed timbing 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. 
 
Amok! 129 
 
 The dying man's lips moved. The Prince 
 bent lower. 
 
 "She loved you. Yes " Noa mut- 
 tered, 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 be- 
 friended. 
 
 The laws are as immutable as fate. 
 
Lepas's Revenge 
 tEale of a 
 
 A ^HERE 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 op- 
 posite 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 
 
 130 
 
Lepas's Revenge 131 
 
 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, miss- 
 ing ; 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, 
 
132 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 wab-wab or 
 spider face. 
 
Lepas's Revenge 133 
 
 "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 : 
 
134 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 " 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 brill- 
 iantly 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 mo- 
 tion, 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 dron- 
 
Lepas's Revenge 
 
 ing 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 jun- 
 gle, 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. 
 
136 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 "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 Le- 
 pas. 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 
 
JUST A GRAY, JUNGLE MONKEY 
 
 "Lepas would sit for hours cuddled up in the mistress's lap " 
 
Lepas's Revenge 
 
 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 per- 
 fect 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 hand- 
 springs and salaam for them, but never for 
 
138 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 the mistress or myself. Such tricks, he 
 seemed to think, were beneath his new po- 
 sition 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 mo- 
 ment 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 con- 
 vey to me his opinion of my humane efforts 
 to keep him clean. 
 
Lepas's Revenge 139 
 
 I expected as a matter of course to lose 
 another pair of shoes or something, in pay- 
 ment 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 
 
140 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 dis- 
 covery 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. Recog- 
 
Lepas's Revenge 141 
 
 nizing 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 command- 
 
142 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 ing 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 mechan- 
 ical 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 cham- 
 pagne 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 offi- 
 cial'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 
 
Lepas's Revenge 143 
 
 a moment everything was in wild confu- 
 sion, and the mistress's beautifully decorated 
 table looked as though a bomb had ex- 
 ploded on it. 
 
 The Chinese " boys " made a rush for the 
 end of the room, and there, up on the side- 
 board, among the glass, pelting his enemy, 
 the high official, as fast as he could throw, 
 was Lepas. 
 
 A ringer 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. 
 
144 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 hypocriti- 
 cal 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 
 
Lepas's Revenge 145 
 
 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 shoul- 
 der as happy as a lover. 
 
 I never saw Lepas but once again, and 
 that was one evening on the ocean espla- 
 nade. 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- 
 
146 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 hide drum and singing a plaintive, monoto- 
 nous 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 accomplish- 
 ment. 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 ef- 
 fort 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 
 
 U5eing an Account of an Stecent of SJDount 
 in spalap, by I?i0 (frcellenq?, fyt 
 ^akim of spaur, ano tlje Writer 
 
 "And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, 
 four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Sol- 
 omon." i 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 vra. 2 1 . 
 
 THE rose tints of a tropical sunrise had 
 broken through the heavy bamboo 
 chicks that jealously guarded the rapidly fleet- 
 ing 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, 
 
 H7 
 
148 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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. 
 
King Solomon's Mines 149 
 
 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 Con- 
 sul," 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 punkab 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. How- 
 ever, 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." 
 
150 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 I turned to the Tuan Hakim, or Chief 
 Justice, with a gesture of unconcealed pleas- 
 ure. We had shot crocodiles the day pre- 
 vious 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 
 
King Solomon's Mines 151 
 
 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 Highnesses 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. 
 
152 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " Boyab, 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 ex- 
 ploded in unison. 
 
King Solomon's Mines 153 
 
 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 re- 
 sounding 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 Albu- 
 querque with his ships of war and soldiers 
 
154 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 genera- 
 tions were born and died with arms in their 
 
King Solomon's Mines 155 
 
 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, 
 c Mount Ophir.' 
 
156 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 cc 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 an- 
 other 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 
 
King Solomon's Mines 157 
 
 that it was reckoned by the bbar 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 
 
158 Tales of the Malayan Goast 
 
 you credit my tale ? It is all here," he said, 
 pointing to his head. " Everything that re- 
 lates to my home I know. King Emmanuel 
 of Portugal wrote to his High Kadi at 
 Rome, that his general, the cruel Albu- 
 querque, had sailed to the Aurea Cherso- 
 nese, called by the natives Malacca, and 
 found an enormous city of twenty-five thou- 
 sand houses, that abounded in spices, gold, 
 pearls, and precious stones. Was Monte- 
 zuma's capital greater?" he triumphantly 
 asked. 
 
 " It was as great then as Singapore is to- 
 day. 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 impor- 
 tance of your country." 
 
 There was a Malay kampong, or village, 
 to our right. Under the heavy green and 
 
King Solomon's Mines 
 
 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 pungbulo, 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. 
 
160 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 "The Dato Mamat captured a Portu- 
 guese 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 Lak- 
 samana, 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 
 
King Solomon's Mines 161 
 
 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 even- 
 ing 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 : c 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 
 
1 62 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 cbupab 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 
 
King Solomon's Mines 163 
 
 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. Sud- 
 denly 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 casurina- 
 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 lak- 
 samana ; neither am I a dato. Allah is just. 
 Tuan Allah Suka ! ' 
 
1 64 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 "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 Lak- 
 samana in the dungeon. f Reveal the spot 
 where thy gold is hidden, and thy life and 
 liberty are granted/ 
 
 " Day by day the Dato replied, c 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 err- 
 ing heart. Thou knowest that it goes out 
 to this woman still. Let not my country 
 
King Solomon's Mines 165 
 
 suffer for my deeds. I gave unto thy ser- 
 vant 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 for- 
 eigner." 
 
 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 for- 
 ward and listen with unconcealed excitement. 
 Then, as he returned to English, they would 
 drop back into their places, but never take 
 
1 66 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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, colum- 
 nar and straight, and the ground was firm, 
 although densely covered with ferns and 
 vines. 
 
 The launch stopped, and the chief turned 
 
King Solomon's Mines 167 
 
 to me. cc 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 ex- 
 tensive 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 sec- 
 ond one always steps in the footprints of 
 
1 68 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 innumer- 
 able 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 wel- 
 come 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 
 
King Solomon's Mines 169 
 
 in the kingdom, and the little old weazened 
 pungbulo, who came bowing and smiling for- 
 ward, 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 feather- 
 less 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 polite- 
 ness' 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 
 
170 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 path, accompanied by some ten natives of 
 the village whom my companion had re- 
 tained to cut a path for us up the moun- 
 tain. 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. 
 
King Solomon's Mines 171 
 
 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 inter- 
 vals 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 listen- 
 ing to the call of the coo-ee? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes," I answered 
 
172 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 "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 disap- 
 pear, 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 Portu- 
 guese 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, AH, Sultan of Maur." 
 
King Solomon's Mines 173 
 
 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 morn- 
 ing before we started. Our Malays had 
 gone on at daybreak, to cut a path up the 
 base of the mountain to where the open for- 
 est 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 cross- 
 ing a level plateau we once more found our- 
 selves 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 im- 
 mense stone field, padang-batu y the Malays 
 called it. It extended along the mountain 
 
174 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 car- 
 pet beneath our feet, while hundreds of mag- 
 nificent 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 fadang-batu we entered a for- 
 est 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. 
 
King Solomon's Mines 
 
 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. Drop- 
 ping 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 
 

 176 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 that I had brought with me I waved franti- 
 cally above my head, much to the amuse- 
 ment 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, con- 
 necting 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. 
 
King Solomon's Mines 177 
 
 " 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 se- 
 cure 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 de- 
 lightful after the moist, heat-laden atmos- 
 phere of the lowlands, and a strong breeze 
 freed us from the swarm of tiger mosquitoes 
 that we had learned to expect as the dark- 
 ness came on. 
 
 Where the Ophir of the Bible really is, 
 
1 78 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 comprehen- 
 sive term, possibly taken from this Mount 
 Ophir of Johore, which signified the most 
 central point of the region to which Solo- 
 mon's ships sailed. For all ages the gold 
 of the Malay Peninsula has been known ; 
 from the earliest times there has been inter- 
 course between the Arabians and the Malays, 
 while the Malayan was the very first of the 
 far Eastern countries to adopt the Moham- 
 medan 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 
 
King Solomon's Mines 179 
 
 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 Ma- 
 lay 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 tucbim. Their 
 word for bird is tcbem, 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 red- 
 dening rays for a moment; they flamed along 
 the course of a half-hidden river; we stood 
 out clear and distinct in their glorious efful- 
 gence, and then the broken, denuded crags 
 and ragged ravines of the padang-batu ab- 
 sorbed them in its black fastnesses. 
 
 The gold of Mount Ophir was all about us. 
 
i8o Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 of a spalapn <0irlfjooD 
 
 THEY called her Busuk, or "the young- 
 est" at her birth. Her father, the old 
 fungbulo, 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 pres- 
 ents 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 cocoa- 
 nut 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. 
 
 iSi 
 
1 82 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 hus- 
 band, 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 Jo- 
 hore, 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 
 
Busuk 183 
 
 some even called her Inchi Busuk, the 
 princess. 
 
 From the low-barred window of Busuk' s 
 home she could look out on the shimmer- 
 ing, 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 Bu- 
 suk, 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 Highnesses 
 launches. 
 
 Sometimes she blinked her eyes as a va- 
 grant 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 
 
184 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 liz- 
 ards' 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 mud- 
 pies 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. 
 
Busuk 185 
 
 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 scaf- 
 folding, 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 chil- 
 dren 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 
 
1 86 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 prom- 
 ises 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 lad- 
 ders screaming, " Harimau ! Harimau!" (A 
 tiger ! A tiger !) The next morning she 
 found that her pet dog, Fatima, named after 
 
Busuk 187 
 
 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 pung- 
 hulo 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 
 
1 88 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 cbumpaka 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 kam- 
 fong under the gently swaying cocoanuts, and 
 the little Malayan girl grew up like her com- 
 panions, free and wild, with little thought 
 beyond the morrow. That some day she 
 was to be married, she knew ; for since her 
 first ffirthday she had been engaged to 
 Mamat, the son of her father's friend, the 
 pungbulo of Bander Bahru. 
 
Busuk 189 
 
 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 frau 
 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 Singa- 
 
i o,o Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 pore. 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 care- 
 fully 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. 
 
Busuk 
 
 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 dress- 
 ing-gown, and was fastened down the front 
 with golden brooches of curious Malayan 
 workmanship ; a pair of red-tipped sandals ; 
 
192 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 and a black lace scarf to wear about her 
 black hair. There were earrings and a neck- 
 lace 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 blem- 
 ish 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 
 
Busuk 193 
 
 the rice that had forty sambuls to mix with 
 it. There were the pods of the moringa 
 tree, chilies and capsicums, prawns and de- 
 cayed 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 beau- 
 tifully clean with the juice of the lime and 
 the lather of the soap-nut; then it was 
 combed and brushed until every hair glis- 
 tened 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 cbumpaka. 
 
194 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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, 
 
Busuk 195 
 
 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 writ- 
 ten, "Written deeds may be forged, de- 
 stroyed, 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. 
 
196 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 Then the women brought garlands of 
 flowers red allamandas, yellow convolvulus, 
 and pink hibiscus and hung them about 
 Busuk and Mamat, while the musicians out- 
 side 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 box- 
 ing, 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 frau 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 
 
Busuk 197 
 
 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 plen- 
 tiful 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 Ameri- 
 can girls are out of school, and about the 
 
198 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
Busuk 199 
 
 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 hum- 
 ble 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 
 Sit tl)r jToot of spount ODpljir 
 
 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 sur- 
 mounting the cushion of clouds, standing 
 out bold and clear against the almost fierce 
 azure of the Malayan sky. 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 
 
 201 
 
 " 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. 
 
2O2 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 prov- 
 ince of Maur in dominions of his Highness 
 Abubaker, Sultan of Johore. Above and 
 overshadowing all both in beauty and his- 
 torical 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 net- 
 work of vines and shrubs which in their turn 
 gave place to the black, red rock that shone 
 like burnished brass. 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 203 
 
 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 
 stones 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 
 
2O4 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 en- 
 lightened Princes of the East. Fourteen 
 miles from Singapore, just across the notori- 
 ous 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 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 205 
 
 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 
 
206 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 no" 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 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 207 
 
 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 prov- 
 ing 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 
 
208 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 and ten grain cartridges were none too large 
 for even the smaller crocodiles. As for those 
 eighteen and twenty feet long, it was neces- 
 sary 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 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 209 
 
 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. 
 
 " Boyab besar!" (A royal crocodile) re- 
 peated our Malays under their breaths. 
 
 The Chief Justice and I fired at the same 
 time, and the massive fellow who, but a mo- 
 ment 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 with- 
 out the aid of either his head or his tail. 
 Then he brought his tail around in a circle 
 
2io Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 and struck the skeleton roots of the man- 
 grove with such force as to dislodge a small 
 monkey in its top, which fell whistling with 
 fright into the lower limbs, while the croco- 
 dile'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 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 211 
 
 gone through it and then stiffened out, 
 dead. 
 
 Our Malay boys got a rope of tough gam- 
 ooty 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 : 
 
212 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 " Tuan, Tuan Consul, come see boyab 
 (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, 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 213 
 
 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 enthu- 
 siasm. I found the path, but it was so 
 overgrown with creepers, parasites, and rub- 
 
214 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 ber-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 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 215 
 
 channel, I was out of the way of the net- 
 work of roots ; but now the channel was get- 
 ting 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 dis- 
 tance, 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 scram- 
 bled 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 
 
216 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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. 
 
A CROCODILE HUNT ON THE MAUR 
 " I turned at bay with my long hunting knife in my hand " 
 
A Crocodile Hunt 217 
 
 All manner of thoughts came unbidden to 
 my mind. I could see Inchi Mohamed 
 propped up on cushions in the launch read- 
 ing "A Little Book of Profitable Tales" 
 that had just been sent me by its author. 
 I started to smile at the tale of The Cly- 
 copeedy. 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 some- 
 thing I can never forget. Suddenly Lekas 
 came floundering through the mud ; a sec- 
 ond more, and he perceived my enemy when 
 almost within reach of his jaws. 
 
 Barking furiously, Lekas began to back 
 
218 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 delib- 
 erately away, with the gallant little dog re- 
 treating 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 await- 
 ing 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 
 some of it* picturesque Customs 
 
 Ti yTY Malay syce came close up to the 
 -*> * A veranda and touched his brown fore- 
 head with the back of his open hand. 
 
 " Tuan " (Lord), he said, " have got oil 
 for harness, two one-half cents ; black oil 
 for cudab'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, translu- 
 cent gray. I closed my eyes and stretched 
 
 219 
 
220 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 back in my long chair, wondering vaguely 
 at the occasion that called for such an out- 
 lay in oils, when I heard once more the 
 quiet, insistent " Tuan ! " I opened my 
 eyes. 
 
 " No got red, white, blue ribbon for whip." 
 
 " Sudab cbukupf" (Stop talking) I com- 
 manded angrily. The syce shrugged his 
 bare shoulders and gave a hitch to his cot- 
 ton 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 jist of December. The syce touched 
 his hand to his forehead and salaamed. 
 
 Through the spaces of the protecting chicks 
 
A New Year's Day in Malaya 221 
 
 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 panta- 
 lets 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 
 
222 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 the cool, pellucid globes before me, " To- 
 mollow New Year Dlay, Tuan ! " 
 
 On Christmas Day, Ah Minga had pre- 
 sented the mistress with the gilded counter- 
 feit presentment of a Joss. The servants, 
 one and all, from Zim, the cookee, to the 
 wretched Kling dbobie ( 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 regu- 
 lar 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 
 
A New Year's Day in Malaya 223 
 
 peninsula and neighboring islands had gath- 
 ered 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 multi- 
 plied, unconsciously furnishing a background 
 of extraordinary variety and picturesqueness. 
 
 At ten o'clock the favored representa- 
 tives 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 repre- 
 sent law and civilization amid the teeming 
 native population. 
 
 In the centre of the beautiful esplanade or 
 playground rose the heroic statue of Sir 
 
224 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 in- 
 sured 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 
 
A New Year's Day in Malaya 225 
 
 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 reg- 
 ular 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 forc- 
 ing 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 
 
226 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 masti- 
 cation 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, blind- 
 ing 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 
 
A New Year's Day in Malaya 227 
 
 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 box- 
 ing 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 colebs 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, 
 
228 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lish 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, 
 
A New Year's Day in Malaya 229 
 
 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 
 
 # tEale of Ctjangty 315ungaloto 
 
 WE had been out all day from Singa- 
 pore on a wild-pig hunt. There 
 were eight of us, including three young offi- 
 cers of the Royal Artillery, besides some- 
 where 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 jun- 
 gle 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 
 
 230 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 231 
 
 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 con- 
 venience 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 impene- 
 trable 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 jun- 
 gle, and crocodiles and sharks in the Straits, 
 
232 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 and lizards and other things in the bunga- 
 low. 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 un- 
 easily 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 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 233 
 
 went on to a neighboring native police sta- 
 tion 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 hun- 
 dred 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 sur- 
 face 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 thermome- 
 ter dropped down two or three degrees, and 
 a tearing wind struck the bamboo curtains 
 and stretched them out straight; the tops of 
 
234 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 the massive jungle trees bent and creaked ; 
 there was a blinding flash and a roar of 
 thunder, and all distance was lost in dark- 
 ness 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 y 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 Singa- 
 pore, there could be no mistake. "Loafer'* 
 was written all over him from his ragged, 
 matted hair to the fringe on the bottom of 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 235 
 
 his trousers. He held a broken cork hel- 
 met, 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 Ameri- 
 can 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 fumble in the bottomless 
 pocket of his coat. " I will supply all that 
 as you go along. What is it you want ? " 
 
236 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 Win- 
 chester. 
 
 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." 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 237 
 
 "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. 
 
238 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 "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 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 239 
 
 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 un- 
 conscious 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 
 
240 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 un- 
 easily 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 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 241 
 
 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 
 
242 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 punkab-lstmps, 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 com- 
 pany 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 com- 
 panion. We puffed a moment in silence, 
 while the boy replenished our glasses. 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 243 
 
 " Now," I said, tipping my chair back 
 against the wall, " tell me your story." 
 
 My guest's face at once assumed the ex- 
 pression 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 Sher- 
 man 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 inno- 
 cence 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 
 
244 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 He hurried on : 
 
 cc 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 osten- 
 tatiously, 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." 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 245 
 
 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 
 
246 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 com- 
 mendable 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 cul- 
 tivate my mind by travel and society, while 
 the bushes were growing. Well it ended in 
 the same old way. I got into the chit ties' 
 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 suc- 
 cess, and after that to see the world. I 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 247 
 
 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 
 
248 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 my- 
 self 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 fin- 
 gers, 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, 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 249 
 
 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 com- 
 mand, "Eyes left, eyes right," then, as 
 a last resource, "eyes under the table." 
 He had not noticed the little bundle in the 
 
250 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 dark corner. He drew himself up and gave 
 the military salute. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir, but we are out for a 
 deserter from the 5 8th, Bill Hulish, 
 we 'ave tracked him 'ere, and with the com- 
 pliments 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 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 251 
 
 likewise, and then, because he was a man of 
 sweet composure and had not asked any ques- 
 tions 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 Vs 
 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 ! " 
 
252 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 " 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 romancing sir." 
 He checked himself, as though ashamed of 
 awarding such meed of praise to his ex-col- 
 league. 
 
 " 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 
 
In the Southwest Monsoon 253 
 
 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 
 3f|n rtje spalapn jungle 
 
 F ^HE 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 under- 
 
A Pig Hunt 255 
 
 neath their rims ; yet, after an hour of ex- 
 posure, 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 planta- 
 tion, 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, deter- 
 mined 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. 
 
 
256 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 appall- 
 ing 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 wab-wabs 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 
 
A Pig Hunt 257 
 
 monkeys, whistling and scolding at the un- 
 wonted 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 possi- 
 bly 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 50 x 95 Express and I had per- 
 fect confidence that one ball to a pig was 
 sufficient. 
 
 The yelling grew nearer until, with a sud- 
 den 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 
 
258 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 three hundred yards off, but I could not re- 
 sist the temptation. I brought my rifle to 
 my shoulder and fired twice in rapid succes- 
 sion. 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 prow- 
 ess in contempt. I know they looked it, 
 
<T 
 
 A PIG HUNT IN THE JUNGLE 
 The wary old leader made into the jungle behind 
 
A Pig Hunt 259 
 
 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 inacces- 
 sible 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 sports- 
 men. One of the peculiar attributes of the 
 Malayan tiger is his decided penchant for 
 Chinese flesh, repeatedly striking down Chi- 
 
260 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 nese 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 plan- 
 tations 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. 
 
A Pig Hunt 261 
 
 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 at- 
 mosphere 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 cocoa- 
 nut groves. At intervals a Malay kampong, 
 or village, was revealed in the heart of the 
 grove, its queer <2//<zp-thatched houses raised 
 a man's height from the ground, and con- 
 nected with it by rickety ladders. Dozens 
 of nude little children played under the 
 
262 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 shadow of the palms, while the comely faces 
 and jryr^-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 occasion- 
 ally, 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 
 
A Pig Hunt 
 
 263 
 
 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 farm- 
 ers, 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 
 
264 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 around the jungle to drive whatever it con- 
 tained 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 pano- 
 rama 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 
 
A Pig Hunt 265 
 
 shutting it in on both sides and above. 
 The thorns of the rattans reached down 
 and tore our clothes, and long trailing rub- 
 ber-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 igua- 
 nas and long-tailed lizards of a brilliant 
 green rushed up the trunks of lichen-cov- 
 ered trees. Troops of monkeys went scat- 
 tering 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 
 
266 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 centre of the plantation we found a huge 
 wedge-shaped at tap 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. Pine- 
 apples, 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 
 
A Pig Hunt 267 
 
 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 
 
 k 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 
 
268 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 Win- 
 chester Express rang out almost simultane- 
 ously. 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 shat- 
 tered 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 Mohamme- 
 dams 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 
 
A Pig Hunt 
 
 269 
 
 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 
 GroUming of a cpalapn prince 
 
 TUNKU IBRAHIM was just past sev- 
 enteen 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 Eng- 
 land when he was fifteen years old, and with 
 his little cousin, the Tunku, or Prince, Othman, 
 had dined with the Queen at Windsor. 
 
 270 
 
In the Court of Johore 271 
 
 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 invi- 
 tations 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 car- 
 riages, 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 
 
272 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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, 
 
 
In the Court of Johore 273 
 
 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. 
 
274 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 Eaboos^ do not 
 even know their native tongue. 
 
 The Malays, dressed in gayly colored sa- 
 rongs 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 con- 
 versing and watching the files of gharries, or 
 carriages, and even rickshaws, that were bring- 
 ing 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. 
 
In the Court of Johore 275 
 
 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, Java- 
 nese 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 con- 
 cealed wonderment, when he entered to con- 
 
276 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 duct 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 uni- 
 formed colleagues through the long suite 
 of rooms. It would have been useless for 
 me to have tried to explain the great Ameri- 
 can 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 
 
In the Court of Johore 277 
 
 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 Sul- 
 tanate. 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lish Governor on his left. Ranged about 
 the burnished walls of the great room, sev- 
 eral 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 fif- 
 
278 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 teen 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 Highnesses hand. 
 
 Above our heads in the gilded walls, be- 
 hind 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 
 
In the Court of Johore 279 
 
 people if they wished the young Tunku to 
 be their future lord that we could hear their 
 shrill voices mingling with the " Suku, su- 
 ku" ("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 
 
280 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 cous- 
 ins, 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 descend- 
 ants 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 
 
In the Court of Johore 281 
 
 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 ad- 
 miration. 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 
 
282 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 Sul- 
 tan 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 congratu- 
 lated 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, 
 
In the Court of Johore 283 
 
 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 Highnesses throat was a collar 
 of diamonds and on his hands and in the 
 decorations that covered his breast were dia- 
 monds, emeralds, and rubies, of almost price- 
 less 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 
 
284 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 poten- 
 tate possessed $ 10,000,000 worth of diamonds, 
 the second largest collection on earth. 
 
 In personal appearance his Highness com- 
 pared 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. 
 
In the Court of Johore 285 
 
 Besides being a lover of jewels, his High- 
 ness 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 Aus- 
 tralians, and Indian galloways. Twice a year 
 he offered a cup at the Singapore jockey 
 races, and entered a half dozen of his best run- 
 ners. 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 fur- 
 nished 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 
 
286 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 High- 
 ness'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 tem- 
 pered and kept in sympathy with the Eng- 
 
In the Court of Johore 287 
 
 lish 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 
 Highnesses kitchen, justly boasts of the ex- 
 cellence of his curry and the number of sam- 
 buls 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 pow- 
 der, 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 
 
288 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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, mut- 
 ton 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 
 
In the Court of Johore 289 
 
 telegraphed back two hundred thousand dol- 
 lars, with the request that her name be en- 
 graved 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 Amer- 
 ica, 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 
 
290 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
In the Court of Johore 291 
 
 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 pur- 
 chased 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 attaf 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 
 
292 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 ft peep at tfje Cttv of Singapore 
 
 GOULD 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 ban- 
 ian-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 
 
 293 
 
294 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 tugs at a rattan withe, his naked limbs shin- 
 ing 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 es- 
 sence, 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 
 on his head, and draws calmly at his water- 
 pipe, while a bevy of Hindu and Tamil 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 295 
 
 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, pos- 
 sibly a piece of shark's fin, or better still a 
 lump of bird's nest, places them in the ket- 
 tle, as he yells from time to time, " Macben y 
 mac hen" (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 
 
296 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 spotted Deli pony, which is not larger than 
 a Newfoundland dog, in between a big, lum- 
 bering 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, regard- 
 less of the fierce screams of the Malay or 
 the frenzied objurgations of their driver. 
 
 But no one pays any attention to the mo- 
 mentary 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 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 297 
 
 cat's-eyes to a party of Eurasian, or half-caste 
 clerks, that are taking advantage of their mas- 
 ter'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 cbitties 
 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 se- 
 curity 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. 
 
298 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 Dyaks from Borneo idle by. Parsee mer- 
 chants in their tall, conical hats, Chinese rick- 
 shaw 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 jryr^-stained lips the glorious prom- 
 ises of the Koran ? 
 
 Look on the map of Asia for the south- 
 ernmost 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 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 299 
 
 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 main- 
 land 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 reflec- 
 tions of the ocean. 
 
 Some seem only inhabited by a graceful 
 waving burden of strange, tropical foliage, and 
 
300 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 by a band of chattering monkeys ; on others 
 you detect a Malay kampong, or village, its 
 umbrella-like houses of attap y 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 man- 
 grove 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 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 301 
 
 outlines of the traveller's palm become distin- 
 guishable. 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 tem- 
 ple, the slender spire of an English cathe- 
 dral, 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 
 
302 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred 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 hun- 
 dred 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 govern- 
 ment 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 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 303 
 
 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 to 80, the European popu- 
 lation meets on this esplanade park to play 
 tennis, cricket, and football, and to prom- 
 enade, 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 
 
304 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 ver- 
 dure 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. 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 305 
 
 At the end of a long aisle of palms and 
 banians you see a bit of wide-spreading ve- 
 randa, 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. Hun- 
 dreds of rickshaws pull out of the way. 
 
 A great landau, drawn by a pair of thor- 
 oughbred Australian horses, driven by a 
 Malay syce y and footman in full livery, and 
 containing a bare-headed Chinese merchant, 
 in the simple flowing garments of his nation, 
 
306 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 dashes along. The victoria and the dog- 
 cart of the European, and the universal 
 palanquin of the Anglo-Indian, form a per- 
 fect 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 atten- 
 tion 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 ar- 
 tistic, 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 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 307 
 
 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 
 
308 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 moun- 
 tain 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, 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 309 
 
 the pole of a cart, that in this nineteenth 
 century is generally only to be seen in na- 
 tional 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 
 
310 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 of ground back from the hill on the Alla- 
 badd road from his father-in-law, old Mo- 
 hammed 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 con- 
 sciously 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 cbupa 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 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 311 
 
 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 recip- 
 ient 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 syces 
 arms, the driver slips quietly up the 
 pole of the cart until a hand rests on 
 
312 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 either hump, and commences to talk in a 
 half-aggrieved, half-caressing tone to his 
 team. Our syce translates. " He say bul- 
 lock 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 his- 
 toric 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. 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 313 
 
 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-smell- 
 ing hibiscus, all alike covered with a hun- 
 dred 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 
 
314 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 force of naked Hindus and an iron roller 
 drawn by six unwilling, hump-backed bul- 
 locks, 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 bana- 
 nas and farms of coffee are interspersed with 
 spice trees and sago swamps. 
 
 This road system is the secret of the de- 
 velopment 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 the Golden Chersonese 315 
 
 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 in- 
 
316 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 viting him into your richly furnished draw- 
 ing-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 pil- 
 lars, 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 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 317 
 
 are the barber, the washman, the tailor, and 
 the watchman. In a mild way, you are 
 at the mercy of these servants. Their du- 
 ties 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 econo- 
 mize on servant bills. The record of the 
 thermometer is too appalling, and you 
 speedily become too dependent on their at- 
 tentions. 
 
 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 cbambre, your 
 
318 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 m'enage 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 found- 
 ing 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, 
 
In the Golden Chersonese 319 
 
 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 Lord- 
 ship 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 popula- 
 tion of over one million, and a revenue of 
 five million dollars a magnificent monu- 
 ment 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 
 
320 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 Dutchman smiled benignly, with one finger 
 in the corner of his eye, and went back to 
 his coffee and tobacco trading in the beauti- 
 ful islands of Java and Sumatra, pitying the 
 ignorance of the Englishman, who was con- 
 tented with the swampy jungles of an un- 
 known and savage neck of land, little think- 
 ing 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 
 of a ganfeee 
 
 THE Daily Straits Times on the desk 
 before me contained a vivid word pic- 
 ture 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 in- 
 credible. 
 
 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 in- 
 tent 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 
 
 3" 
 
322 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 " 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 stones of perhaps a like per- 
 sonal experience. I knew the symptoms and 
 somtimes 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 re- 
 freshing 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 redo- 
 lent 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 323 
 
 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 lan- 
 guage. 
 
 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 cap- 
 tain 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 passen- 
 gers without searching them for arms. Why ! 
 it is an open bid to pirates. Goes to show 
 
324 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 325 
 
 American flags in this very harbor of Singa- 
 pore 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 adven- 
 turous 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 cour- 
 teous, 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. 
 
326 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 snake- 
 like course. It was my first bit of adven- 
 ture, 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 327 
 
 we would land and rest for the day or 
 night, eat of their juicy fruit, and go on 
 short excursions for game. A roasted mon- 
 key, 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 some- 
 times 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 com- 
 pany 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 lieu- 
 
328 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 tenant in a grand deer-hunt that lasted for 
 five days, and then started back accom- 
 panied by two native soldiers bearing de- 
 spatches 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 329 
 
 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 im- 
 mense cartridge, came up from the west. 
 Through it played vivid flashes of light- 
 ning, 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 
 
330 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 darker from hour to hour. A smell of 
 sulphur came to our nostrils. It was op- 
 pressively 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 com- 
 pletely 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. 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 331 
 
 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 re- 
 mainder 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. 
 
332 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 clam- 
 bered 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 distin- 
 guishable 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 333 
 
 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 re- 
 flected 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 pecul- 
 iar 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 
 
334 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 335 
 
 we were well fortified and there was no 
 wreck to pillage, they would withdraw with- 
 out 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 ter- 
 rific crashing of a great boulder, followed by 
 groans and yells. With one accord we 
 rushed to the head of the canon. The 
 
336 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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, jryr^-stained 
 lips, and bloodshot eyes. In their move- 
 ments 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 337 
 
 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 sav- 
 age yells. Still they fought on and up, mak- 
 ing 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 boYn, who 
 had been detailed to guard the other defile. 
 
 The boVn 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 mus- 
 kets settled the hopes of the invaders. 
 
338 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 Our little party was divided, and we were 
 outnumbered ten to one. One of the sail- 
 ors 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 excite- 
 ment. 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 bis- 
 cuit 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 339 
 
 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 warn- 
 ing, the mass broke away, and with a tre- 
 mendous 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, crowd- 
 ing 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 fright- 
 ened 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 
 
340 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 fight, 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. 
 
 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 remain- 
 ing 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 341 
 
 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 discov- 
 ery, 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 pass- 
 ing 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 weari- 
 ness 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 
 
342 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 alternative, and that was to descend and make 
 a fight for our boat on the beach. The 
 boYn 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 suc- 
 ceeded in throttling. We pushed the boat 
 into the surf, expecting every moment to 
 see one of the praus glide around the project- 
 ing 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 343 
 
 placid ocean, sending up a shower of phos- 
 phorescent 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 gen- 
 erations of sea-captains. I saw myself on a 
 winter night relating this very story of ad- 
 
344 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 venture 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 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 345 
 
 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. 
 
346 Tales of the Malayan Coast 
 
 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 Eangor. Enfeebled and nearly famish- 
 ing, 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 Eangor sending a ball 
 skimming along over the waters, which, al- 
 though it went wide of its mark, caused the 
 
A Fight with Illanum Pirates 347 
 
 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 undefin- 
 able blot on the distant horizon. 
 
 And that ^as the skipper's yarn. 
 
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