first I lived there, all business was transacted at night, and no one of
standing, who respected himself, thought of going to bed before eight
o'clock in the morning, or of getting up till four in the afternoon. For
Malays to wake one means that there is trouble, or that something
untoward has occurred; for, in the Native States, slumber is
respected,--as it ought to be, seeing how hard at times it is to come
by,--and the European practice of being called in the morning, is a
barbarous habit with which Malays have no sympathy. On this occasion
there was a good reason for waking me, as news had just come in that To’
Mûda Long had killed Bâyan the Paroquet, and as this had occurred in the
compound of the _Râja_, with whom I had formerly travelled, and as he
and the Sultân were on bad terms, there was room for fear that serious
political complications would ensue. I, therefore, had occasion to
inquire into the details of this murder, and this is what I learned.
To’ Mûda Long, Bâyan the Paroquet, and the rest of the up-country
natives, who had accompanied us down river to Pekan, remained in the
_Râja's_ enclosure to act as his body-guard and boat crew, and they had
not been long at Pekan before the girls of the town began to send
challenges to them, for Malay women dearly love a change, and these men
were all strangers newly come among them. Nothing loth, the _Râja's_
followers plunged hotly into the love intrigues which formed the
principal interest in life to the people of Pekan, and the usual
jealousies began to cause quarrels among them. Now, it chanced that To’
Mûda Long and Bâyan both desired the same girl, and she, it would seem,
preferred the Paroquet to the young Chieftain. Perhaps, his good voice,
and the skill with which he sang the Song of the Bûrong Âgot, turned the
balance in his favour, for Malay women love to be amused, and often
favour those who are willing and able to amuse them. The girl was well
born, and had many relatives, so To’ Mûda Long could not make an open
scandal by attempting to seize her by force, but his desire for her was
hot in his breast, and he decided that Bâyan the Paroquet should die.
It only remained to seek a pretext for a quarrel, and this was easily
found. In the afternoon the _Râja's_ followers were accustomed to play
_sêpak râga_,--a game which consists in kicking a round basket-work
ball, made of rattan, from one to the other, without letting it fall to
the ground. When it became dark, the players adjourned to the _Râja's
bâlai_ or hall, and some of them forgot to let down their trousers,
which had been hitched up above their knees to leave their legs free
while playing. Bâyan was one of the older men among the _Râja's_
followers, and he, therefore, checked these youths; for, to enter a
_Râja's bâlai_ with bared knees is an act of rudeness. To’ Mûda Long
knew the custom, and, of course, his knees were covered, but when Bâyan
spoke he leapt up and said:
'Arrogant one! Dost thou alone know the custom of kings? Thou art over
clever at teaching men!'
And, drawing his _kris_ he made a murderous assault on Bâyan. The latter
whipped his _kris_ out, too, and it would have gone ill with To’ Mûda
Long, for Bâyan was a strong man and knew the use of his weapon, had not
the older men, who were present, interfered to separate the combatants.
Next morning, Bâyan arose betimes, and, taking the long bamboos, in
which water is stored and carried, he went down to the river to have his
morning bath, and to fetch water for his house. He must have attached
but little importance to the incident of the previous afternoon, for he
went to the river unarmed, which was unusual in those days even for men
who had no especial cause of quarrel. A Malay often judges the courage
of his fellows by whether or no they are careful to be never separated
from their weapons, and Europeans who, in humble imitation of Gordon,
prefer to go about unarmed, make a great mistake, since a Malay is apt
to interpret such action as being dictated by cowardice. Bâyan bathed in
the river, filled his bamboos, and began to carry them to his house; but
To’ Mûda Long had been watching his opportunity, and he and two of his
followers, all fully armed, had taken up a position in the middle of the
path, by which Bâyan must pass back to his house.
'Thou wast over arrogant to me last night,' said To’ Mûda Long as Bâyan
approached, 'and now I will repay thee!'
'Have patience, To’ Mûda, have patience,' said Bâyan. 'Thy servant did
not speak to thee; it was the boys who were unmannerly, and thy servant,
being an old man, did reprove them!'
'It is not for the like of thee to reprove men, and the said boys are my
people, the sons of my loins. I will cover their shame!' said To’ Mûda
Long, for the wolf was determined to pick a quarrel with the lamb, bleat
he never so wisely.
'Have patience, To’ Mûda!' again cried poor Bâyan, but the words were
hardly out of his mouth before To’ Mûda Long struck at him with his
spear, but missed him. Then, as Bâyan retreated step by step, defending
himself with the clumsy bamboo from the deft spear thrusts, no more
words passed between them.
At last the spear went home. '_Bâsah! Bâsah!_ I have wetted thee!' cried
To’ Mûda Long, and he went in at his enemy, _kris_ in hand, Bâyan
beating him about the head with the now empty bamboo. When he got to
close quarters, the deed was soon done, and the body of Bâyan the
Paroquet, with seventeen rending wounds upon it, lay stark and hideously
staring at the pure morning sky.
There was loud talk of blood-money, and equally loud talk of reprisals,
but nothing came of it; and though I often meet To’ Mûda Long, who is as
soft spoken and as gentle in his manners as ever, Bâyan's death was
never revenged, and the fact that he ever lived and sang is now
well-nigh forgotten, even by those who knew him, and loved to hear his
tales.
A TALE OF A THEFT
The voice of your complaining
At the little ills you know,
The crumpled leaf that's paining,
At the soil that's yours to sow,
At the exile from your caste-mates,
At the toil, the sweat, the heat,
Bears down our cry against the Fates!
We suff'rers round your feet!
To us the hardest lot you bear,
Ere you pass Home again,
Were free and happy, bright and fair,
If scaled against _our_ pain.
We toil while others reap the fruit,
We suffer nameless ills;
Our lives are withered to the root,
By cruelty that kills.
Our very homes are not our own;
Our children and our wives
Are riven from us, while we moan
And labour out our lives.
They prison us in filthy sties
Would shame your Christian Hell;
No ear there is to heed our cries,
No tongue our pains to tell.
_The Very Bitter Cry of the Unprotected._
I have said that the Malays, taken by and large, have no bowels. The
story I am about to tell, illustrates this somewhat forcibly. The
incident related happened on the East Coast, and I know it to be a
fact. It is not a pleasant story, and any one who has a proud stomach,
would do well not to read it, as it is calculated to make the gorge rise
rebelliously.
In one of the States on the East Coast, there lived a _Râja_, who,
though he was not the ruler of the country, was a man of standing, and
was possessed of considerable power. This man owned much land, many
cattle, several wives, and a number of slave-debtors, and his reputation
for kindness and good-nature stood high among the people. It must be
remembered, however, that the standard by which he was judged differs
considerably from our own, otherwise, the things I am about to tell,
would appear to accord but ill with the character he bore.
Upon a certain day a _kris_ was stolen from him, and suspicion fastened
upon one of his slave-debtors named Talib. The man was innocent of the
theft, but his protestations were not believed, and he was forthwith
consigned to the _Pen-jâra_ or local gaol. The tedious formality of a
trial was dispensed with, and nothing in the nature of the sifting of
evidence was considered necessary. The stolen _kris_ was the property of
a Prince. That was enough; and Talib went to gaol forthwith, the Râja
issuing an order--a sort of _lettre de cachet_--for his admittance. To
European ears this does not sound very terrible. Miscarriages of
justice, even in civilised lands, are not unknown, and in semi-barbarous
countries they are, of course, all in the day's march. Unfortunately,
however, an inspection of the gaols of Europe and of the Protected
Native States, does not enable one to form a picture of the _Pen-jâra_
in Independent Malaya; and imprisonment in the former is not altogether
the same thing as incarceration in the latter.
The gaol in which Talib was confined was situated in one of the most
crowded portions of the native town. It consisted of two rows of cages,
placed back to back, each one measuring some six feet in length, two
feet in width, and five feet in height. These cages were formed of heavy
slabs of wood, with intervals of some two inches in every eight, for the
admission of light and air. The floors, which were also made of wooden
bars, were raised about six inches from the ground; and the cages, which
were twelve in number, were surrounded, at a distance of about two feet,
by a solid wall, formed of slabs of wood joined closely one to another.
Prisoners placed in these cells are never allowed to come out again,
until the money payment has been made in satisfaction of the claim
against them, or until kindly Death puts forth his hand to deliver them
from worse pains than his.
Even this represents little to the European mind. Natives may perhaps
live in a cage from necessity much as they often live in a boat from
choice, and those who have never visited the prisoners in their
captivity may think that no great suffering is inflicted upon them by
such confinement. To fill in the picture one has to remember many
things. No sanitary appliances of any kind are provided; no one ever
cleans out the cages, or takes any steps to prevent the condition of the
captives from being such as would disgrace that of a wild beast in a
small travelling menagerie. The space between the floor and the ground,
and the interval which separates the cells from the surrounding fence,
is one seething, living mass of stinking putrefaction. Here in the
tropics, under a brazen sun, all unclean things turn to putrid filthy
life within the hour; and in a native gaol the atmosphere is heavy with
the fumes and rottenness of the offal of years, and the reeking pungency
of offal that is new. No ventilation can penetrate into the fetid
airless cells, nor could the veriest hurricane purge the odours bred by
such surroundings.
This then was the wretched life to which Talib was now condemned; nor
did his agonies end here, for the gnawing pangs of hunger were added to
his pains. He was handed over to the gentle care of the _Per-tanda_ or
Executioner--an official who, in the Unprotected States, unites the
kindly office of life-taker and torturer, with the hardly more humane
post of gaoler. This man, like all his fellows, had been chosen for his
physical strength, and his indifference to the sight of pain; and the
calling, which he had pursued for years, had rendered the natural
ferocity of his character abnormally brutal. He was, moreover, an
Oriental official,--a class of worthies who require more supervision to
restrain them from thieving, than do even the Chinese coolies in a gold
mine, where the precious metal winks at one in the flickering
candle-light. Needless to say, no attempt of any kind was made by the
higher State officials to control the action of the _Per-tanda_. During
the months of the year in which the river was accessible to native
crafts, he had the right to collect dues of rice and fish from all boats
approaching the coast; but, during the close season of the north-east
monsoon, no allowance of any kind was made to him for the board of the
prisoners in his charge. Under these circumstances, perhaps, he was not
greatly to blame if he perverted to his own use, and sold to all comers,
the collections which he made during the open season, so that his
household might not be without rice and raiment, during the dreary
months when the hatches were down for the monsoon. Naturally, death,
from slow and lingering starvation, was not an altogether uncommon
incident in these dens of captivity, and one of Talib's first
experiences was to witness the last agonies of a fellow prisoner in an
adjoining cage. Talib himself was fed by a girl, who had been his
sweetheart before his trouble fell upon him; and, though the pangs of
hunger could not be completely allayed by the slender doles, which she
daily saved from her own ration of rice and fish, he was not, for the
time, exposed to actual danger of death from want.
The prisoner in the cage to his left was little more than a skeleton
when Talib first entered the prison. He lay huddled up in a corner, with
his hands pressed to his empty stomach and the sharp angles of his bones
peeping through his bed-sores, motionless, miserable, but, let us hope,
only half conscious of his misery. Talib saved a small portion of his
own insufficient meal for this man, but the poor wretch was already too
far gone for any such tardy aid to avail to save him. It was with
difficulty that he could swallow the rice which Talib passed to him, in
grudging handfuls, through the bars of his cell. When at last the food,
by a superhuman effort, had been forced down his shrunken gullet, his
enfeebled stomach refused to receive it, and violent spasms and vomiting
followed, which seemed to rend his stricken frame, as a fierce wind rips
through the palm-leaf sail of a native fishing-smack. In a day or two he
became wildly delirious, and Talib then witnessed a terrible sight. A
raving maniac in a well-ordered asylum, where padded walls and careful
tendance do much to save the poor disordered soul from tearing its way
through the frail casing of diseased flesh and bone, is a sight to
shudder at, not to see! But in the vile cage in which this poor victim
was confined, nothing prevented the maddened sufferer from doing himself
any injury that it is possible for a demented wretch to do. With the
strength of frenzy he dashed his head and body relentlessly against the
unyielding bars of the cage. He fell back crushed and bleeding, foaming
at the mouth with a bloody froth, and making inarticulate beast noises
in his throat. Then, as the madness again took hold of him, shaking him
as a terrier shakes a rat, he flung himself once more at the bars, and,
after another fearful paroxysm, fell back inert upon the floor. For
hours he lay exhausted, but wildly restless, too spent to struggle and
too demented and tortured to be still. He moaned, he groaned, he cursed
with horrid filthy words and phrases, bit as a dog bites in his madness,
strove to gnaw the loathsome rags which had long ceased to cover his
nakedness, and then again was still, save for the incessant rolling of
his restless head, and the wilder motion of his eyes which glistened and
flashed with fever. Just before dawn, when the chill air was making
itself felt even in the fetid atmosphere of the place, his reason came
back to him for a space, and he spoke to Talib in a thin, far-away
voice, and with many gasps and sighs and pauses:
'Little Brother,' he said, 'Dost thou also watch? For not long now
shall thy elder brother bear these pains. Hast thou any water? I
thirst sore. No matter, it is the fate to which I was born. Brother, I
stole five dollars from a Chief. I did it because my wife was very
fair, and she abused me, saying that I gave her neither ornaments nor
raiment. Brother, I was detected. I knew not then that it was my wife
who gave the knowledge of my theft to the Chief,--he in whose
household I was born and bred. He desired her, and she loved him, and
now he has taken her to wife, I being as one already dead, and my wife
being legally divorced from me. While she was yet bound to me, she
sent to me food, by one of the Chief's slaves, and from him I learned
the plot which had undone me. Brother, hast thou any water? I thirst
sore, Little Brother. My mouth is hard and rough as the skin of the
skate, and it is dry as the fish that has been smoked above the fire.
Hast thou no water? Maimûnah! My wife! Water, I pray thee! Water!
Water!--O mother! O mother! O mother of mine! Water, mother! Water! I
die! I die! Mother! * * *'
His voice died away into inarticulate moaning, and, in an hour, he was
dead.
Next morning his body was carried out for burial, and for a time his
cage remained unoccupied.
In the cage on Talib's right, there was a man, so haggard, meagre,
filthy, diseased, and brutal in his habits, that it was difficult to
believe that he was altogether human. His hair fell in long, tangled,
matted, vermin-infested shocks, almost to his waist. His eyes,--two
burning pits of fierce fire,--were sunk deep into his yellow,
parchment-coloured face. The cheek-bones were so prominent that they
resembled the sharp edges of a _selâdang's_[11] skull, and his temples
stood out like the bosses on the forehead of a fighting ram. The dirt of
ages clung in the thousand wrinkles and creases of his skin; and he
hardly moved save to scratch himself fiercely, as a monkey tears at his
flea-infested hide. A small ration of rice and fish was brought to him
daily by an old and wrinkled hag,--his wife of other years,--who made a
meagre living for him and for herself, by selling sweet-stuff from door
to door. She came to him twice daily, and he tore ravenously at the
food, eating it with horrible noises of animal satisfaction, while she
cooed at him, through toothless gums, with many endearing terms, such as
Malay women use to little children. Not even his misery and degradation
had been able to kill her love, though its wretched object had long
ceased to understand it, or to recognise her, save as the giver of the
food he loved and longed for. He had been ten years in these cages, and
had passed through the entire range of feeling, of which a captive in a
Malay prison is capable. From acute misery to despair, from despair to
stupid indifference, he had at length reached the stage which the Malays
call _kâleh_. It means insensibility, such as few can imagine or
understand, and which is so bestial, that it reduces a feeling thinking
human being to the level of an ape.
[Footnote 11: _Selâdang_ = wild buffalo of the Peninsula.]
Talib himself had as yet reached only the first stage of his suffering,
and the craving for one breath of fresh air grew and grew and gathered
strength, until it became an overmastering longing that day and night
cried out to be satisfied. At last he could restrain the desire no
longer, and, reckless of the consequences, he told the _Per-tanda_ that,
if he could be taken to a place a day's journey up the river, he could
set his hand upon the missing _kris_ which he had hidden there. He was
perfectly aware that the _kris_ was not, and never had been, buried in
that place, for he knew as little of it as the _Per-tanda_ himself. He
could forsee that his failure to find it would be followed by worse
tortures, but he heeded not. He would breathe the free fresh air once
more, would look again up on the clear blue vault of heaven overhead,
would hear the murmur of running water, the sighing of the wind through
the fruit trees, and would see, smell, hear, and feel, all the sights,
the scents, the sounds, and the surroundings that he loved and longed
for so keenly.
On a certain day he was taken up river, to the place he had named, but
the stinking reek of the cell seemed to cling about him, and the fresh
air was to him made foul by it. The search was fruitless of course, he
was beaten by the boatmen, who had had their toil for nothing, and sore
and bleeding he was placed once more in his hated cage, with the added
pain of heavy irons to complete his sufferings. An iron collar was
riveted about his neck, and attached by heavy links to chains passed
about his waist, and to rings around his ankles. The fetters galled
him, prevented him from lying at ease in any attitude, and doubled the
number of his bed-sores. The filthy bloated flies buzzed around him now
in larger numbers, feasting horribly on his rottenness, and he himself
was sunk in stupid, wide-eyed despair.
A Chinese lunatic had been placed in the vacant cage on his left, a poor
mindless wretch, who cried out to all who visited the prison, that he
had become a Muhammadan, vainly hoping thereby to meet with some small
pity from the worshippers of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. The
bestial habits of this wretched creature, whose madness was intensified
by his misery, and by his surroundings, made Talib's life more keenly
horrible than ever; but he himself was now fast sinking into the stolid,
animal indifference of his right-hand neighbour. I saw him, exactly as I
have described him, some two years ago, and, unless kindly death has set
him free, he has now, I do not doubt, reached the happy condition of
_kâleh_.
If the men suffer thus, what are the pains endured by tender women and
by little children? It makes one sick to think of it! And yet, all these
things happened and are happening to-day, within shouting distance of
Singapore, with its churches, and its ballrooms, its societies for the
prevention of cruelty, its missionaries, its discontented exiled
Europeans, its high standards, its poor practice, its loud talk, and its
boasted civilisation.
IN A CAMP OF THE SEMANGS
The paths are rough, the trails are blind
The Jungle People tread;
The yams are scarce and hard to find
With which our folk are fed.
We suffer yet a little space
Until we pass away,
The relics of an ancient race
That ne'er has had its day.
_The Song of the Last Semangs._
The night was closing in apace as I and my three Malay companions pushed
our way through the underwood which overgrew the narrow wood path. We
were marching through the wide jungles of the Upper Pêrak valley, which
are nearer to the centre of the Malay Peninsula than any point to which
most men are likely to penetrate. Already the noisy crickets and tree
beetles were humming in the boughs above our heads, and the voices of
the bird folk had died down one by one until now the monotonous note of
the night-jar alone smote upon our ears. The colour was dying out of the
leaves and grasses of the jungle, and all things were assuming a single
sombre shade of black, the trees and underwood becoming merged into one
monstrous shapeless mass, bulking big in the gathering darkness.
We had been delayed all day, by constantly going astray on the
innumerable faint tracks, which, in this part of the country, begin
nowhere in particular, and end nowhere at all. The jungle-dwelling
tribes of Semang, who alone inhabit these woods, guard their camps
jealously, for, until lately, they were often raided by slave-hunting
bands of Malays and Sâkai. To this end they do all that woodcraft can
suggest to confuse the trails which lead to their camps, making a very
maze of footpaths, which serve but as a faint guide to strangers in
these forests.
The Semang are the survivors of a very ancient race of negrits, remnants
of which are still to be found scattered over Eastern Asia, and may be
supposed to be the first family of our human stock that ever possessed
these glorious lands. In appearance they are like African negroes seen
through the reverse end of a field-glass. They are sooty black in
colour; their hair is short and woolly, clinging to the scalp in little
crisp curls; their noses are flat, their lips protrude, and their
features are those of the pure negroid type. They are sturdily built,
and well set upon their legs, but they are in stature little better than
dwarfs. They live by hunting, and have no permanent dwellings, camping
in little family groups, wherever, for the moment, game is most
plentiful, or least difficult to come by.