it is much the same. Up country the natives live more chastely than do
the people of the capital; they work harder, age sooner, lie less
softly, experience less change, and are chiefly occupied in supporting
themselves and their families. They rise early, work or idle through the
day, and go to bed very soon after dark. Their lives are entirely
monotonous, dull, and uneventful, but the knowledge of other and better
things is not for them, and they live contentedly the only life of which
they have any experience. They can rarely afford to support more than
one wife, and, as they love their little ones dearly, they often live
with the same woman all the days of her life, since divorce entails some
degree of separation from the children.
Down country things are different. The gossip of the Court, the tales of
brave deeds, the learned discussions, or the rough sports add an
interest to life, which is not to be experienced by the dwellers in the
far interior. The number of unmarried women within the palace causes the
youths of the town to plunge wildly into intrigues, for which they often
have to pay a heavy price, but which always instil an element of romance
into their lives. This, of course, is the merest sketch, for no real
study of the people can be attempted in a work written on such
unscientific lines as the present, and the reader--supposing such a
problematical person to exist--must form his own picture of my Malay
friends from the stories which I shall have to tell in future pages. It
is only too probable that I shall fail to give any real idea of the
people of whom I write, to any save those who are already able to fill
in the omissions for themselves, and who, therefore, know as much about
Malays as is good for any man; but, if I fail, it will be because I lack
the skill to depict with vividness the lives of those whom I know
intimately, and whom, in spite of all their faults, and foibles, and
ignorance, and queer ways, I love exceedingly.
THE EXPERIENCES OF RÂJA HAJI HAMID
I've spent my life in war and strife,
And now I'm waxing old;
I've planned and wrought, and dared and fought,
And all my tale is told;
I've made my kill, and felt the chill
Of blades that stab and hew,
And my only theme, as I sit and dream,
Is the deeds I was wont to do.
These things were told me by Râja Haji Hamid, as he and I lay smoking on
our mats during the cool, still hours before the dawn. He was a Selângor
man who had accompanied me to the East Coast, as chief of my followers,
a band of ruffians, who at that time were engaged in helping me to act
as 'the bait at the tip of the fish-hook,' in an Independent Malay
State--to use the phrase then current among my people.
We had passed the evening in the King's _Bâlai_ watching the Chinamen
raking in their gains, while the Malays gambled and cursed their luck,
with much slapping of thighs, and frequent references to God and his
Prophet,--according to whose teaching gaming is an unclean thing. The
sight of the play, and of the fierce passions which it aroused, had
awakened memories in Râja Haji's mind, and it was evidently not without
a pang that he remembered that the turban round his head,--which his
increasing years, and his manifold sins, had driven him to Mecca to
seek,--forbade him to partake publicly in the unholy sport. Like most of
those who have outgrown their pleasant vices, he had a hearty admiration
for his old, prodigal, unregenerate self; and, as I lay listening, he
spoke lovingly of the old days at Selângor, before the coming of the
white men.
'Allah Tûan! I loved those old times exceedingly! When the Company had
not yet come to Selângor, when all were shy of Si-Hamid, and none dared
face his _kris_, the "Chinese Axe." I never felt the grip of poverty in
those times, for my supplies were ever at the tip of my dagger, and they
were few who dared withhold aught which I desired or coveted!'
'Did I ever tell thee, _Tûan_, the tale of how the gamblers of Klang
yielded up the money of their banks to me without resistance; or the
turn of a dice box? No? Ah, that was a pleasant tale, and a deed which
was famous throughout Selângor, and gave me a very great name.
'It was in this wise. I was in a sorry case, for the boats had ceased to
ply on the river through fear of me, and my followers were few, so that
I could not rush a town or a Chinese _kongsi_ house. As for the village
people, they were as poor as I, and, save for their women-folk, I never
harassed them. Now, one day, my wives and people came to me asking for
rice, or for money wherewith to purchase it, and I had nothing to give
them, only one little dollar remaining to me. It is very bad when the
little ones want food, and my liver grew hot at the thought. None of the
woman-folk dared to say any word, when they saw that my eyes waxed red;
but the little children cried, and I heard them, and was sad. Moreover,
I, too, was hungry, for my belly was empty. Then I looked upon my only
dollar, and, calling one of my men, I bade him go to a Chinese store,
and buy me a bottle of the white man's perfume. Now, when one of my
wives, the mother of my son, heard this order she cried out in anger:
"Art thou mad, Father of Che’ Bûjang? Art thou mad, that thou throwest
away thy last dollar on perfumes for thy lights of love, while Che’
Bûjang and his brethren cry for rice?" But I slapped her on the mouth,
and said "Be still!"--for it is not well for a man to suffer a woman to
question the doings of men.
'That evening, when the night had fallen, I put on my fighting jacket,
and my Celebes drawers, and bound my _kris_, the "Chinese Axe," about
my waist, and took my sword, the "Rising Sun," in my hand. Three or
four of my boys followed at my back, and I did not forget to take with
me the bottle of the white man's perfume. I made straight for the
great Klang gambling house, and when I reached the door, I halted for
the space of an eye-flick, and spilled the scent over my hand and arm
as far as the elbow. Then I rushed in among the gamblers, suddenly and
without warning, stepping like a fencer in the sword-dance and crying
"_Amok! Amok!_" till the coins danced upon the gaming tables. All the
gamblers stayed their hands from the staking, and some seized their
dagger hilts. Then I cried aloud three times, "I am Si-Hamid, the
Tiger Unbound!"--for by that name did men then call me--"Get ye to
your dwellings speedily, and leave your money where it is, or I will
slay you!"
'Many were affrighted, some laughed, some hesitated, but none did as I
bade them. "Dogs and pigs!" I cried, "Are your ears deaf that ye obey me
not, or are ye sated with life, and desire that your shrouds should be
prepared? Obey me, or I will slay ye all, as a kite swoops upon little
chickens! What is your power, and what are your stratagems, and how can
ye prevail against me? I who am invulnerable, I whom even the fire burns
but cannot devour!"
'With that I thrust my right hand into the flame of a gaming lamp, and
it, being saturated with the white man's perfume, blazed up bravely even
to my elbow, doing me no hurt, as I waved my arm above my head. Verily,
the white men are very clever, who so cunningly devise the medicine of
these perfumes.
'Now, when all the people in the gambling house saw that my arm and hand
burned with fire, but were not consumed, a great fear fell upon them,
and they fled shrieking, and no man stayed to gather up his silver. This
I presently put into sacks, and my men removed it to my house, and my
fame waxed very great in Klang. Men said that henceforth Si-Hamid should
be named the Fiery Rhinoceros,[7] and not the Unbound Tiger, as they had
hitherto called me. It was long ere the trick became known, and even
then no man, among those who were within the gaming house that night,
dared ask me for the money which I had borrowed from him and his
fellows. Ya Allah, Tûan, but those days were exceeding good days! I
cannot think upon them, for it makes me sad. It is true what is said in
the _pantun_ of the men of Kedah:
'Pûlau Pinang has a new town,
And Captain Light is its King;
Do not recall the days that are gone,
Or you will bow down your head,
And the tears will gush forth!
'Ya Allah! Ya Tûhan-ku! Verily, I cannot think upon it!'
[Footnote 7: Fiery Rhinoceros = Bâdak âpi, a fabulous monster of
Malay tradition.]
He tossed about uneasily on his mat for some time, and I let him be, for
the memory of the old, free days to a Malay _râja_, whose claws have
been cut by the Europeans, is like new wine when it comes back suddenly
upon him, and it is best, I think, to let a man fight out such troubles
alone and in silence. 'Can words make foul things fair?'--and, however
much I might sympathise with my friend, there was no blinking the fact,
that he and I were then engaged in trying to do for another set of Malay
_râjas_, all that Râja Haji Hamid so bitterly regretted that the white
men had done for him, and for Selângor.
After a space he became calmer, for though the thought of his troubles
is often present to the mind of a Malay _râja_, the paroxysms, which the
memory occasions, are not usually of long duration. Presently he began
chuckling to himself, and then spoke again:
'I remember once, when I was for the moment rich with the spoils of war,
I gambled all the evening in that same house at Klang, and lost four
thousand dollars. It mattered not at all on which quarter of the mat I
staked, nor whether I staked _ko-o_, _li-am_, or _tang_; I pursued the
red half of the dice as one chases a dog, but never once did I catch it.
At last, when my four thousand dollars were finished, I arose and
departed, and my liver was hot in my chest. As I came out of the Farm, a
Chinaman, whom I knew, and who loved me, followed after me, and said,
"Hai-yah, Ungku, you have lost much to-night. That man with whom you
gambled was cheating you, for he has a trick whereby he can make the red
part of the dice turn to whichever side of the mat he wills." "Is this
true?" I asked, and he said, "It is indeed true."'
'Then I loosened the "Chinese Axe" in its scabbard, and turned back into
the Farm. First I seized the Chinaman by the pig-tail, and my followers
gathered up all the money in the bank, near seven thousand dollars, so
that it needed six men to carry it, and I then departed to my house,
none daring to bar my passage.'
'When we had entered the house, I bade the Chinaman be seated, and told
him that I would kill him, even then, if he did not show me the trick
whereby he had cheated me. This he presently did, and for near two hours
I sat watching him, and practising, for I had a mind to learn the manner
of his art, thinking that hereafter I might profit by it. Then, when the
dawn was breaking, I led the Chinaman down to the river by the
hand,--for I was loth to make a mess within my house,--and when I had
cut his throat, and sent his body floating down-stream, I washed myself,
performed my ablutions before prayer, prayed, and went to my bed, for my
eyes were heavy with sleep.'
'_Kasîh-an Chîna!_' I said, 'I am sorry for the Chinaman!'
'Why are you sorry for him?' asked Râja Haji, 'He had cheated me and it
was not fitting that he should live; besides, he was a Chinaman, and we
counted not their lives as being of any worth. In Kinta, before Mr.
Birch went to Pêrak, they had a game called _Main China_, each man
betting on the number of the coins which a passing Chinaman carried in
his pouch, and whether they were odd or even. Thereafter, when the bets
had been made, they would kill the Chinaman and count the coins.'
'They might have done that without killing the Chinaman,' I said.
'It is true,' rejoined Râja Haji, 'but it was a more certain way, and,
moreover, it increased their pleasure. But _Tûan_, the night is very far
advanced. Let us sleep.'
Verily, life in an Independent Malay State, like adversity, makes one
acquainted with strange bed-fellows.
THE BATTLE OF THE WOMEN
Woman is the lesser man, and all her passions matched with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine.
_Locksley Hall._
This is a true story. Also, unlike most of the tales which I have to
tell concerning my Malay friends, it is garnished with a moral; and one,
moreover, which the Women's Rights Committees would do well to note. I
should dearly like to print it as a tract, for distribution to these
excellent and loud-talking institutions, but, failing that, I publish it
here, among its unworthy companions.
To those who live in and around a Malay Court, two things only take rank
as the serious matters of life. These are the love intrigues, in which
all are more or less engaged at peril of their lives, and the deeds of
daring and violence,--long past or newly done,--of discussing which men
and women alike never weary. People talk, think, and dream of little
else, not only in the places where men congregate, but also in the dimly
lit inner apartments, where the women are gathered together. In the
conduct of their love intrigues, men and women alike take a very active
part, for the ladies of the Peninsula are as often as not the wooers of
the men, and a Malay girl does not hesitate to make the necessary
advances if the swain is slow to take the initiative, or fails to
perceive the desire which she has conceived for him. In the matter of
fighting, however, the women--who are as often as not the cause--act
usually as mere spectators, taking no active part themselves, though
they join in a shrill chorus of applause when a shrewd blow is given,
and delight greatly in the brave doings of their men. Nevertheless, the
warlike atmosphere, with which she is surrounded all the days of her
life, sometimes infects a young Malay Princess, and urges her to do some
daring deed which shall emulate the exploits of her brothers, and shall
show her admirers how dashing a spirit, and how great a courage are
hers.
It was during the hot, aching months, which, in Merry England, go to
make up the Spring of the year; and the King and his favourite
concubines had betaken themselves up-river to snare turtle-doves, and to
drowse away the hours in the cool flowering fruit groves, and under the
shade of the lilac-coloured _bûngor_ trees. Therefore the youths and
maidens in the palace were having a good time, and were gaily engaged in
sowing the whirlwind, with a sublime disregard for the storm, which it
would be theirs to reap, when the King returned to punish. As the
vernacular proverb has it, the cat and the roast, the tinder and the
spark, and a boy and a girl are ill to keep asunder; and consequently my
friends about the palace were often in trouble, by reason of their love
affairs, even when the King was at hand; and on his return, after he
had been absent for a day or two, there was generally the very devil to
pay. Perhaps, on this occasion, the extreme heat had something to do
with it, and made hot blood surge through young veins with unwonted
fury, for things went even worse than usual, and, after a week of
flagrant and extraordinary ill-doing, Tungku Indut, one of the King's
sons, put the finishing touch to it all, by eloping with no less than
four of his father's choicest dancing girls!
Now, these girls were as the apple of her eye to Tungku Indut's
half-sister, Tungku Aminâh. They belonged to her mother's household, and
had been trained to dance from earliest infancy, with infinite care and
pains. Nor had they attained their present degree of efficiency, without
the twisting back of tortured fingers, and sundry other gentle
punishments, dear to Malay ladies, being frequently resorted to, in
order to quicken their intelligence. That her brother should now carry
off these girls, after all the trouble which had been expended upon
their education, was a sore offence to Tungku Aminâh; and that the girls
themselves were very willing captives, and had found a princely lover,
while she remained unwedded, did not tend to soothe her gentle woman's
breast. Her mother was also very wroth, and sent threatening messages to
Tungku Indut, presaging blood and thunder, and other grievous trouble
when the King returned. Tungku Indut, however, resolutely declined to
give the girls up. He knew that he had gone so far that no tardy amends
could now cover his ill-deeds, and, as he had a fancy for the girls, he
decided to enjoy the goods the gods had sent him until his father came
back, and the day of reckoning arrived. His stepmother, therefore,
resigned herself to await the King's return; but Tungku Aminâh could not
brook delay, and she resolved to attack Tungku Indut in his house, and
to wrest the girls from him by force of arms.
Circumstances favoured her, as her mother, who was the only person
capable of thwarting her project, was ill with fever, and had retired
early to her bed and her opium pipe. Tungku Aminâh was thus left at
liberty to do whatsoever she wished; and accordingly, at about eleven
o'clock that night, she sallied forth, from within the stone wall which
surrounded her mother's palace, at the head of her army.
It was at this moment that word was brought to me that strange things
were toward, and I, and the Malays who were with me, ran out to our
compound fence, and witnessed all that ensued with our eyes glued to the
chinks in the plaited bamboos.
Presently the army came pouring down the street in the pale moonlight,
and halted in front of my compound, which chanced to face the house at
that time occupied by Tungku Indut, the door of which abutted on the
main thoroughfare. Tungku Aminâh led the van, strutting along with an
arrogant and truculent swagger most laughable to see. She was dressed
for the occasion after the fashion of the Malay warrior. Her body was
encased in a short-sleeved, tight-fitting fighting jacket, which only
served to emphasise the femininity of her bust. She wore striped silk
breeches reaching to the middle of her shins; a silk _sârong_ was
folded short about her waist; and her thick hair was tucked away
beneath a head handkerchief twisted into a peak in the manner called
_tanjak_. At her belt she carried a _kris_, and also, a smaller dagger,
called a 'pepper-crusher' in the vernacular, and in her hand she held a
drawn sword, which she brandished as she walked. At her back came some
three hundred women, moving down the street with that queer
half-tripping, half-running gait, which Malay women always affect when
they go abroad in a crowd at the heel of their Princess. The way in
which they run into and press against one another, on such occasions,
together with the little quick short steps they take, always reminds me
of young chickens trying to seek shelter under their mother's wing. The
army was wonderfully and fearfully armed. Some of the more fortunate had
spears and daggers; one or two carried old swords; but the majority were
armed with weapons borrowed from the cook-house. The axes and choppers,
used for breaking up firewood, were the best of these arms, but the
number of these was limited, most of Tungku Aminâh's gallant three
hundred being provided with no better weapons than the _kandar_ sticks,
on which water pails are carried; spits made of wood hardened in the
fire; cocoa-nut scrapers lashed to sticks; and a few old pocket-knives
and fish-spears. What they lacked in equipment, however, they made up in
noise, one and all combining to raise an indescribable and deafening
babel.
As they halted before Tungku Indut's house, the shrill screams of
defiance from three hundred dainty throats pierced my ear-drums like a
steam siren, and they were all so marvellously noisy, brave, and
defiant, that, in spite of an occasional girlish giggle from one or
another of them, I began to fear there would be bad trouble before the
dawn. So wild was their excitement, and so maddening was the din they
made, that, though Tungku Aminâh shrieked louder than any one of them,
she could not make herself heard above the tumult; and it was not until
she had scratched the faces of those nearest to her, and smitten others
with the flat of her sword, that she succeeded in reducing her followers
to even a partial silence. Then she beat upon the barred door of Tungku
Indut's house with her naked weapon, and cried shrilly to her brother:--
'Come forth, Indut! Come forth, if thou art in truth the son of the same
father as myself! Come forth!'
'Come forth!' echoed the army, and the deafening din of defiance broke
out once more, and was again with difficulty repressed by Tungku Aminâh.
'Come forth!' she shrilled once more, 'come forth that I may rip thy
belly, and cause thy entrails to gush out upon the ground!'
'Come forth, thou accursed and ill-omened one!' echoed the army, with
the unanimity of Pickwick's thirty boarders.
Indut, however, did not show any signs of coming forth; but when the
women had screamed themselves hoarse and out of breath, his gruff voice
sounded from within the house, like the growl of a wild beast, after all
that shrill feminine yelping.
'Go hence, Iang!' he shouted, 'get thee to thy bed, thou foolish one;
disturb not one who desires to slumber, and waken not the fowls with
thy unmaidenly shouting.'
Now, when Tungku Aminâh heard these words she dropped her sword, and
beat upon the door with her little bare hands, weeping and screaming in
a perfect ecstasy of rage, and showering curses and imprecations on her
brother. The army joined in the torrent of abuse, and a very pretty set
of phrases were sent spinning through the clean night air. At length,
Tungku Aminâh, finding that she only bruised her hands, again took up
her sword, and, as soon as she could make herself heard, renewed her
challenge to her brother to come forth.
When this scene had continued for about twenty minutes, and I was
beginning to fear that the Devil would prompt Tungku Aminâh to fire her
brother's house, and that I should get burned out also,--suffering, as
the Malays says, like the woodpecker in the falling tree,--a sudden and
unexpected turn was given to affairs, which speedily brought things to
an abrupt conclusion.
During one of the pauses for breath, indulged in by the clamouring
women, Tungku Indut was heard to arise from his couch with great noise
and deliberation. A hushed silence immediately fell upon the assembled
women, and, in the stillness, Tungku Indut's words were distinctly heard
by all of us.
'Âwang!' he said, naming one of his followers, 'Âwang! _Bring me my
sword!_'
That was all, but it was enough and to spare. A shrill shriek was raised
by the listening women,--a shriek, this time, of fear and not of
defiance,--and in a moment the army of three hundred ladies was in full
flight. Never was there such a rout. They tumbled over, and trampled
upon one another in their frantic desire to escape, and maimed one
another, as they fought their way up the narrow roadway, in their panic.
All respect for persons, rank, or position, was completely lost sight
of, commoners pushing past _râjas_ in their deadly fear of being the
hindermost, who is the proverbial prey of the pursuing devil. Too
breathless to scream, and sweating with fear and exertion, they scuffled
up the street, to the sound of rending garments and pattering feet, nor
did they rest until the palace was regained, and the doors securely
barred.
On the King's return, the dancing girls were, of course, surrendered;
and I do not like to think what was the measure of bodily pain and
suffering, that these dainty creatures were called upon to pay as the
price of their escapade. It was a sore subject with Tungku Indut, too,
and he and his father were not on speaking terms, on this account, for
near a twelvemonth after.
As for Tungku Aminâh, she is as truculent as ever, and bears a great
reputation for courage among her fellow country-women. It is not every
girl, they say, who would so boldly have attacked; and of the retreat,
which only a few of us witnessed, no mention is ever made.
One has heard of the Women's Rights Meeting in Boston, which was broken
up in confusion by the untimely appearance of three little mice; and of
that other meeting, in which the aid of the Chairwoman's husband and
brothers had to be sought, in order to eject a solitary derisive man,
who successfully defied the assembled emancipated females to move him
from his position; but neither of these stories seems to me to
illustrate the inherent feebleness of women, when unaided by the ruder
sex, quite as forcibly as does the pleasant story of Tungku Aminâh and
her brother, Tungku Indut.
IN COCK-PIT AND BULL-RING
There's joy in all sport, no matter the sort,
In each game that is fought for and won;
There's joy in the skill, that helps to a kill,
Be the weapon, rod, spear, or gun.
There's joy in the chase, in the rush of a race,
In all that is fierce and strong;
There's joy in the strife, that is war to the knife,
Let those who will, brand it as wrong.
But no joy that we know, in our life here below,
For man, or for bird, or for cattle,
Can come within sight of the gorgeous delight,
The glorious frenzy of battle!