The Appurtenances of Civilization--Babu--Characteristics of Captain
Murray--An Embodied Government--Chinese Mining Enterprise--A Chinese
Gaming-House--The "Capitans China"--New-Year Visits--Sittings "In
Equity"--A Court of Justice--The Serambang Prison--"Plantation
Hill"--A Monster Bonfire--An Ant World--An Ant Funeral--Night on
"Plantation Hill"--The Murder of Mr. Lloyd--A Chinese Dragon Play--A
Visit to a Malay Prince--The Datu Bandar's House--A Great
Temptation--The Return Journey--An Obituary Quotation
RESIDENCY, SUNGEI UJONG, January 30.
We have been here for four days. The heat is so great that it is
wonderful that one can walk about in the sunshine; but the nights,
though the mercury does not fall below 80 degrees, are cool and
refreshing, and the air and soil are both dry, though a hundred inches
of rain fall in the year. These wooden bungalows are hot, for the
attap roofs have no lining, but they are also airy. There is no-one but
myself at night in the one in which my room is, but this is nothing
after the solitude of the great, rambling Stadthaus. Since we came a
sentry has been on duty always, and a bull-dog is chained at the foot
of the ladder which leads to both bungalows. But there is really
nothing to fear from these "treacherous Malays." It is most curious to
see the appurtenances of civilization in the heart of a Malay jungle,
and all the more so because our long night journey up the Linggi makes
it seem more remote than it is. We are really only sixty miles from
Malacca.
The drawing-room has a good piano, and many tasteful ornaments, books,
and china--gifts from loving friends and relations in the far off
home--and is as livable as a bachelor would be likely to make it. There
is a billiard table in the corridor. The dining-room, which is reached
by going out of doors, with its red-tiled floor and walls of dark,
unpolished wood, is very pretty. In the middle of the dinner table
there is a reflecting lake for "hot-house flowers;" and exquisite
crystal, menu cards with holders of Dresden china, four classical
statuettes in Parian, with pine-apples, granadillas, bananas,
pomegranates, and a durion blanda, are the "table decorations." The
cuisine is almost too elaborate for a traveler's palate, but plain meat
is rarely to be got, and even when procurable is unpalatable unless
disguised. Curry is at each meal, but it is not made with curry powder.
Its basis is grated cocoa-nut made into a paste with cocoa-nut milk,
and the spices are added fresh. Turtles when caught are kept in a pond
until they are needed, and we have turtle soup, stewed turtle, curried
turtle and turtle cutlets ad nauseam. Fowls are at every meal, but
never plain roasted or plain boiled. The first day there was broiled
and stewed elephant trunk, which tastes much like beef.
Babu, who is always en grand tenue, has taken command of everything and
saves our host all trouble. He carves at the sideboard, scolds the
servants in a stage whisper, and pushes them indignantly aside when
they attempt to offer anything to "his young ladies," reduces Captain
Murray's butler to a nonentity, and as far as he can turns the
Residency into Government House, waiting on us assiduously in our
rooms, and taking care of our clothes. The dinner bell is a bugle.
In houses in these regions there is always a brick-floored bath-room,
usually of large size, under your bedroom, to which you descend by a
ladder. This is often covered by a trap-door, which is sometimes
concealed by a couch, and in order to descend the sofa cushion is
lifted. Here it is an open trap in the middle of the room. A bath is a
necessity--not a luxury--so near the equator, and it is usual to take
one three, four, or even five times a day, with much refreshment. One
part of Babu's self-imposed duty is to look under our pillows for
snakes and centipedes, and the latter have been found in all our rooms.
I must now make you acquainted with our host, Captain Murray. He was
appointed when the Datu Klana asked for a Resident four years ago. He
devotes himself to Sungei Ujong as if it were his own property, though
he has never been able to acquire the language. He is a man about
thirty-eight, a naval officer, and an enterprising African traveler;
under the middle height, bronzed, sun-browned, disconnected in his
conversation from the habit of living without anyone in or out of the
house to speak to; professing a misanthropy which he is very far from
feeling, for he is quite unsuspicious, and disposed to think the best
of every one; hasty when vexed, but thoroughly kind-hearted; very
blunt, very undignified, never happy (he says) out of the wilds;
thoroughly well disposed to the Chinese and Malays, but very impatient
of their courtesies, thoroughly well meaning, thoroughly a gentleman,
but about the last person that I should have expected to see in a
position which is said to require much tact if not finesse. His
success leads me to think, as I have often thought before, that if we
attempt to deal with Orientals by their own methods, we are apt to find
them more than a match for us, and that thorough honesty is the best
policy.
He lives alone, unguarded; trusts himself by night and day without any
escort among the people; keeps up no ceremony at all, and is
approachable at all hours. Like most travelers, he has some practical
knowledge of medicine, and he gives advice and medicines most
generously, allowing himself to be interrupted by patients at all
hours. There is no doctor nearer than Malacca. He has been so
successful that people come from the neighboring States for his advice.
There is very little serious disease, but children are subject to a
loathsome malady called puru. Two were brought with it to-day. The
body and head are covered with pustules containing matter, looking very
much like small-pox, and the natives believe that it must run its
course for a year. Captain Murray cures it in a few days with iodide of
potassium and iodine, and he says that it is fast disappearing.
Captain Murray is judge, "sitting in Equity," Superintendent of Police,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Surveyor of Taxes, besides being Board
of Trade, Board of Works, and I know not what besides. In fact, _he is
the Government_, although the Datu Klana's signature or seal is
required to confirm a sentence of capital punishment, and possibly in
one or two other cases; and his Residential authority is subject only
to the limitations of his own honor and good sense, sharpened somewhat,
were he other than what he is, by possible snubs from the Governor of
the Straits Settlements or the Colonial Secretary. He is a thoroughly
honorable man, means well by all the interests of his little kingdom,
and seems both beloved and trusted.
On Sunday morning we had English service and a sermon, the congregation
being augmented by the only other English people--a man from Australia
who is here road-making, and his wife; and in the afternoon,
disregarding a temperature of 85 degrees, we went through the Chinese
village of Serambang.
Tin is the staple product of Sungei Ujong, and until lately the Malay
peninsula and the adjacent regions were supposed to be the richest tin
producing countries in the world. There is not a single tin mine,
however, properly so-called. The whole of the tin exported from Sungei
Ujong, which last year (1879), even at its present reduced price, was
valued at 81,400 pounds, and contributed as export duty to the
Government 5,800 pounds, is found in the detritus of ancient mountains,
and is got, in mining parlance, in "stream works"--that is, by washing
the soil, just as gold is washed out of the soil in Australia and
California. It is supposed that there is a sufficient supply to last
for ages, even though the demand for tin for new purposes is always on
the increase. It is tin mining which has brought the Chinese in such
numbers to these States, and as miners and smelters they are equally
efficient and persevering. In 1828, the number of Chinese working the
mines here was one thousand; and in the same year they were massacred
by the Malays. They now number ten thousand, and under British
protection have nothing to fear.
It is still the New Year holidays, and hundreds of Chinamen were
lounging about, and every house was gayly decorated. The Malays never
join house to house, the Chinese always do so, and this village has its
streets and plaza. The houses are all to a certain extent
fire-proof--that is, when a fire occurs, and the attap-thatched roofs
are burned, the houses below, which are mostly shops, are safe. These
shops, some of which are very large, are nearly dark. They deal mainly
in Chinese goods and favorite Chinese articles of food, fireworks,
mining tools, and kerosene oil. In one shop twenty "assistants," with
only their loose cotton trousers on, were sitting at round tables
having a meal--not their ordinary diet, I should think, for they had
seventeen different sorts of soups and stews, some of them abominations
to our thinking.
We visited the little joss-house, very gaudily decorated, the main
feature of the decorations being two enormous red silk umbrellas,
exquisitely embroidered in gold and silks. The crowds in this village
remind me of Canton, but the Chinese look anything but picturesque
here, for none of them--or at all events, only their "Capitans"--wear
the black satin skull cap; and their shaven heads, with the small patch
of hair which goes into the composition of the pigtail, look very ugly.
The pig-tail certainly begins with this lock of hair, but the greater
part of it is made up of silk or cotton thread plaited in with the
hair, and blue or red strands of silk in a pigtail indicate mourning or
rejoicing. None of the Chinese here wear the beautiful long robes used
by their compatriots in China and Japan. The rich wear a white,
shirt-like garment of embroidered silk crepe over their trousers and
petticoat, and the poorer only loose blue or brown cotton trousers, so
that one is always being reminded of the excessive leanness of their
forms. Some of the rich merchants invited us to go in and drink
champagne, but we declined everything but tea, which is ready all day
long in tea-pots kept hot in covered baskets very thickly padded, such
as are known with us as "Norwegian Kitchens."
In the middle of the village there is a large, covered, but open-sided
building like a market, which is crowded all day--and all night too--by
hundreds of these poor, half-naked creatures standing round the gaming
tables, silent, eager, excited, staking every cent they earn on the
turn of the dice, living on the excitement of their gains--a truly sad
spectacle. Probably we were the first European ladies who had ever
walked through the gambling-house, but the gamblers were too intent
even to turn their heads. There also they are always drinking tea. Some
idea of the profits made by the men who "farm" the gambling licenses
may be gained from the fact that the revenue derived by the Government
from the gambling "farms" is over 900 pounds a year.
Spirits are sold in three or four places; and the license to sell them
brings in nearly 700 pounds a year, but a drunken Chinaman is never
seen. There are a few opium inebriates, lean like skeletons, and very
vacant in expression; and every coolie smokes his three whiffs of opium
every night. Only a few of the richer Chinamen have wives, and there
are very few women, as is usual in a mining population. A good many
roads have been made in the State, and the Chinese are building
buggies, gharries, and wagons, and many of the richer ones own them and
import Sumatra ponies to draw them. To say that the Chinese make as
good emigrants as the British is barely to give them their due. They
have equal stamina and are more industrious and thrifty, and besides
that they are always sober, can bear with impunity the fiercest
tropical heat, and can thrive and save where Englishmen would starve.
The immense immigration of Chinese, all affiliated to clubs or secret
societies, might be a great risk to the peace of the State were it not
that they recognize certain leaders known as "Capitans China," who
contrive to preserve order, so far as is known by a wholesome influence
merely; and who in all cases, in return for the security which property
enjoys under our flag, work cordially with the Resident in all that
concerns the good of the State. How these "Capitans" are elected, and
how they exercise their authority, is as inscrutable as most else
belonging to the Chinese. The Chinese seem not so much broadly
patriotic as provincial or clannish, and the "Hoeys," or secret
societies, belong to the different southern provinces. The fights
between the factions, and the way in which the secret societies screen
criminals by false swearing and other means, are among the woes of the
Governor and Lieutenant-Governors of these Settlements. Though they get
on very well up here, thanks to the "Capitan China," the clans live in
separate parts of the village, have separate markets and gaming houses,
and a wooden arch across the street divides the two "Nations."
We went to pay complimentary visits for the New Year to these
"Capitans" with the Malay interpreter, and were received with a curious
mixture of good-will and solemnity. Wine, tea and sweet-meats were
produced at each house. Their houses are very rude, considering their
ample means, and have earthen floors. They have comfortable carriages,
and their gentle, sweet-mannered children were loaded with gold and
diamonds. In one house, a sweet little girl handed round the tea and
cake, and all, even to babies who can scarcely toddle across the floor,
came up and shook hands. A Chinese family impresses one by its extreme
orderliness, filial reverence being regarded as the basis of all the
virtues. The manners of these children are equally removed from shyness
and forwardness. They all wore crowns of dark red gold of very
beautiful workmanship, set with diamonds. When these girl-children are
twelve years old, they will, according to custom, be strictly secluded,
and will not be seen by any man but their father till the bridegroom
lifts the veil at the marriage ceremony.
After these visits, in which the "Capitans China," through the
interpreter, assured us of their perpetual and renewed satisfaction
with British rule, Mr. Hayward, the interpreter, and I, paid another
visit of a more leisurely kind to one of the Chinese gambling houses,
which, as usual, was crowded. At one end several barbers were at work.
A Chinaman is always being shaved, for he keeps his head and face quite
smooth, and never shaves himself. The shaving the head was originally a
sign of subjection imposed by the Tartar conquerors, but it is now so
completely the national custom that prisoners feel it a deep disgrace
when their hair is allowed to grow. Coolies twist their five feet of
pigtail round their heads while they are at work, but a servant or
other inferior, only insults his superior if he enter his presence with
his pigtail otherwise than pendent. The gaming house, whose open sides
allow it to present a perpetual temptation, is full of tables, and at
each sits a croupier, well clothed, and as many half-naked Chinamen as
can see over each others' shoulders crowd round him. Their silent,
concentrated eagerness is a piteous sight, as the cover is slowly
lifted from the heavy brass box in which the dice are kept, on the cast
of which many of them have staked all they possess. They accept their
losses as they do their gains, with apparent composure. They work very
hard, and live on very little; but they are poor just now, for the
price of tin has fallen nearly one-half in consequence of the great tin
discoveries in Australia.
Along with Mr. Hayward I paid a visit to the Court House, a large
whitewashed room, with a clean floor of red tiles, a tiled dais, with a
desk for the judge, a table with a charge sheet and some books upon it,
and three long benches at the end for witnesses and their friends. A
punkah is kept constantly going. There are a clerk, a Chinese
interpreter, who speaks six Chinese dialects, and a Malay interpreter,
who puts the Chinese interpreter's words into English. As the judge
does not understand Malay, it will be observed that justice depends on
the fidelity of this latter official. Though I cannot say that the
dignity of justice is sustained in this court, there is not a doubt
that the intentions of the judge are excellent, and if some of the
guilty escape, it is not likely that any of the innocent suffer. The
Datu Bandar sometimes sits on the bench with the Resident.
The benches were crowded almost entirely with Chinamen, and a number of
policemen stood about. I noticed that these were as anxious as our own
are to sustain a case. The case which I heard, and which occupied more
than an hour, was an accusation against a wretched Chinaman for
stealing a pig. I sat on the bench and heard every word that was said,
and arrived at no judicial conclusion, nor did the Resident, so the
accused was dismissed. He did steal that pig though! I don't see how
truth can be arrived at in an Oriental court, especially where the
witnesses are members of Chinese secret societies. Another case of
alleged nocturnal assault, was tried, in which the judge took immense
pains to get at the truth, and the prisoner had every advantage; and
when he was found guilty, was put into a good jail, from which he will
be taken out daily to work on the roads.
Malays being Mussulmen, are mostly tried by the "Divine Law" of the
Koran, and Chinamen are dealt with "in equity." The question to be
arrived at simply is, "Did the prisoner commit this crime or did he
not?" If he did he is punished, and if he did not he is acquitted.
There are no legal technicalities by which trial can be delayed or the
ends of justice frustrated. Theft is the most common crime. One hundred
and fourteen persons were convicted last year, which does not seem a
large proportion (being less than one per cent.) out of an unsettled
mining population of twelve thousand. Mr. Hayward, through whose hands
the crime of Singapore and Malacca has filtered for twenty years, was
very critical on the rough and ready method of proceeding here, and
constantly interjected suggestions, such as "You don't ask them
questions before you swear them," etc. Informal as its administration
is, I have no doubt that justice is substantially done, for the
Resident is conscientious and truly honorable. He is very lovable, and
is evidently much beloved, and is able to go about in unguarded
security.
It is not far from the Court House to the prison, a wholesomely
situated building on a hill, made of concrete, with an attap roof. The
whole building is one hundred feet long by thirty feet broad. There are
six cells for solitary confinement. A jailer, turnkey, and eight
warders constitute the prison staff. The able-bodied prisoners are
employed on the roads and other public works, and attend upon the
scavengers' cart, which outcome of civilization goes round every
morning! The diet, which costs fourpence a day for each prisoner,
consists of rice and salt fish, but those who work get two-pence
halfpenny a day in addition, with which they can either buy luxuries or
accumulate a small sum against the time when their sentences expire.
Old and weakly people do light work about the prison. One man was
executed for murder last year under a sentence signed by the Datu
Klana. I have not been in a prison since I was in that den of horrors,
the prison of the Naam-Hoi magistrate at Canton, and I felt a little
satisfaction in the contrast.
The same afternoon we all made a very pleasant expedition to the
Sanitarium, a cabin which the Resident has built on a hill three miles
from here. A chair with four Chinese bearers carried Miss Shaw up, her
sister and the two gentlemen walked, and I rode a Sumatra pony, on an
Australian stock-man's saddle, not only up the steep jungle path, but
up a staircase of two hundred steps in which it terminates, the
sagacious animal going up quite cunningly. One charm of a tropical
jungle is that every few yards you come upon something new, and every
hundred feet of ascent makes a decided difference in the vegetation.
This is a very grand forest, with its straight, smooth stems running up
over one hundred feet before branching, and the branches are loaded
with orchids and trailers. One cannot see what the foliage is like
which is borne far aloft into the summer sunshine, but on the ground I
found great red trumpet flowers and crimson corollas, like those of a
Brobdingnagian honeysuckle, and flowers like red dragon-flies
enormously magnified, and others like large, single roses in yellow
wax, falling slowly down now and then, messengers from the floral
glories above, "wasting (?) their sweetness on the desert air." A
traveler through a tropical jungle may see very few flowers and be
inclined to disparage it. It is necessary to go on adjacent rising
ground and look down where trees and trailers are exhibiting their
gorgeousness. Unlike the coarse weeds which form so much of the
undergrowth in Japan, everything which grows in these forests rejoices
the eye by its form or color; but things which hurt and sting and may
kill, lurk amidst all the beauties. A creeping plant with very
beautiful waxy leaves, said by Captain Murray to be vanilla, grows up
many of the trees.
When we got up to the top of this, which the Resident calls "Plantation
Hill," I was well pleased to find that only the undergrowth had been
cleared away, and that "The Sanitarium" consists only of a cabin with a
single room divided into two, and elevated on posts like a Malay house.
The deep veranda which surrounds it is reached by a stepladder. A
smaller house could hardly be, or a more picturesque one, from the
steepness and irregularity of its roof. The cook-house is a small attap
shed, in a place cut into the hill, and an inclosure of attap screens
with a barrel in it under the house is the bath-room. The edge of the
hill, from which a few trees have been cleared, is so steep that but
for a bamboo rail one might slip over upon the tree-tops below. Some
Liberian coffee shrubs, some tea, cinchona, and ipecacuanha, and some
heartless English cabbages, are being grown on the hillside, and the
Resident hopes that the State will have a great future of coffee.
The view in all directions was beautiful--to the north a sea of densely
wooded mountains with indigo shadows in their hollows; to the south the
country we had threaded on the Linggi river, forests, and small tapioca
clearings, little valleys where rice is growing, and scars where tin-
mining is going on; the capital, the little town of Serambang with its
larger clearings, and to the west the gleam of the shining sea. In the
absence of mosquitoes we were able to sit out till after dark, a rare
luxury. There was a gorgeous sunset of the gory, furnace kind, which
one only sees in the tropics--waves of violet light rolling up over the
mainland, and the low Sumatran coast looking like a purple cloud amidst
the fiery haze.
Dinner was well cooked, and served with coffee after it, just as at
home. The primitive bath-room was made usable by our eleven servants
and chair-bearers being sent to the hill, where the two gentlemen
mounted guard over them. After dark the Chinamen made the largest
bonfire I ever saw, or at all events the most brilliant, with trunks of
trees and pieces of gum dammar, several pounds in weight, which they
obtained by digging, and this was kept up till daylight, throwing its
splendid glare over the whole hill-top, lighting up the forest, and
bringing the cabin out in all its picturesqueness.
I should have liked to be there some time to study the ways of a tribe
of ants. Near the cabin, under a large tree, there was an ant-dwelling,
not exactly to be called an ant-hill, but a subterranean ant-town,
with two entrances. Into this an army of many thousand largish ants, in
an even column three and a half inches wide, marched continually, in
well "dressed" ranks, about twenty-seven in each, with the regularity
of a crack regiment on the "march past," over all sorts of
inequalities, rough ground, and imbedded trunks of small trees, larger
ants looking like officers marching on both sides of the column, and
sometimes turning back as if to give orders. Would that Sir John
Lubbock had been there to interpret their speech!
Each ant of the column bore a yellowish burden, not too large to
interfere with his activity. A column marshaled in the same fashion,
but only half the width of the other, emerged equally continuously from
the lower entrance. From the smaller size of this column I suppose that
a number of the carrier ants remain within, stowing away their burdens
in store-houses. Attending this latter column for eighteen paces, I
came upon a marvelous scene of orderly activity. A stump of a tree,
from which the outer bark had been removed, leaving an under layer
apparently permeated with a rich, sweet secretion, was completely
covered with ants, which were removing the latter in minute portions.
Strange to say, however, a quantity of reddish ants of much larger size
and with large mandibles seemed to do the whole work of stripping off
this layer. They were working from above, and had already bared some
inches of the stump, which was four feet six inches in diameter. As the
small morsels fell among the myriads of ants which swarmed round the
base they were broken up, three or four ants sometimes working at one
bit till they had reduced it into manageable portions. It was a
splendid sight to see this vast and busy crowd inspired by a common
purpose, and with the true instinct of discipline, forever forming into
column at the foot of the stump.
Toward dusk the reddish ants, which may be termed quarriers, gave up
work, and this was the signal for the workers below to return home. The
quarriers came down the stump pushing the laborers, rather rudely as I
thought, out of their way; and then forming in what might be called
"light skirmishing order," they marched to the lower entrance of the
town, meeting as they went the column of workers going up to the stump.
They met it of course at once, and a minute of great helter-skelter
followed, this column falling back on itself as if assailed, in great
confusion. If this be the ordinary day's routine, why does that column
fall into confusion, and why, after throwing it into disorder, do the
reddish ants close their ranks and march into the town in compact
order, parallel with the working column going the other way, and which
they seemed to terrorize? Is it possible that the smaller ants are only
slaves of the larger? Inscrutable are the ways of ants! However, when
the advancing column had recovered from its confusion it formed up,
and, wheeling round in most regular order, fell behind the rear-guard
of the working column, and before dark not an ant remained outside
except a dead body.
Soon after the last of its living comrades had disappeared, six ants,
with a red one (dare I say?) "in command," came out and seemed to hold
a somewhat fussy consultation round the corpse which had fallen on the
line of march to the stump. After a minute or two, three of them got
hold of it, and with the other four as spectators or mourners, they
dragged it for about six feet and concealed it under a leaf, after
which they returned home; all this was most fascinating. A little later
Captain Murray destroyed both entrances to the town, but before
daylight, by dint of extraordinary labor, they were reconstructed lower
down the slope, and the work at the stump was going on as if nothing so
unprecedented had happened.
I should have liked also to study the ways of the white ant, the great
timber-destroying pest of this country, which abounds on this hill. He
is a large ant of a pale buff color. Up the trunk of a tree he builds
a tunnel of sand, held together by a viscid secretion, and under this
he works, cutting a deep groove in the wood, and always extending the
tunnel upward. I broke away two inches of such a tunnel in the
afternoon, and by the next morning it was restored. Among many other
varieties of ants, there is one found by the natives, which people call
the "soldier ant." I saw many of these big fellows, more than an inch
long, with great mandibles. Their works must be on a gigantic scale,
and their bite or grip very painful; but being with a party, I was not
able to make their acquaintance.
When it grew dark, tiny lamps began to move in all directions. Some
came from on high, like falling stars, but most moved among the trees a
few feet from the ground with a slow undulatory motion, the fire having
a pale blue tinge, as one imagines an incandescent sapphire might have.
The great tree-crickets kept up for a time the most ludicrous sound I
ever heard--one sitting in a tree and calling to another. From the
deafening noise, which at times drowned our voices, one would suppose
the creature making it to be at least as large as an eagle.
The accommodation of the "Sanitarium" is most limited. The two
gentlemen, well armed, slept in the veranda, the Misses Shaw in camp
beds in the inner cabin, and I in a swinging cot in the outer, the
table being removed to make room for it. The bull-dog mounted guard
over all, and showed his vigilance by an occasional growl. The eleven
attendants stowed themselves away under the cabin, except a garrulous
couple, who kept the fire blazing till daylight. My cot was most
comfortable, but I failed to sleep. The forest was full of quaint, busy
noises, broken in upon occasionally by the hoot of the "spectre bird,"
and the long, low, plaintive cry of some animal.
All the white residents in the Malacca Settlements have been greatly
excited about a tragedy which has just occurred at the Dindings, off
this coast, in which Mr. Lloyd, the British superintendent, was
horribly murdered by the Chinese; his wife, and Mrs. Innes, who was on
a visit to her, narrowly escaping the same fate. Lying awake I could
not help thinking of this, and of the ease with which the Resident
could be overpowered and murdered by any of our followers who might
have a grudge against him, when, as I thought, the door behind my head
from the back ladder was burst open, and my cot and I came down on the
floor at the head, the simple fact being, that the head-rope, not
having been properly secured, gave way with a run. An hour afterward
the foot-ropes gave way, and I was deposited on the floor altogether,
and was soon covered with small ants.
Early in the morning the apes began to call to each other with a
plaintive "Hoo-houey," and in the gray dawn I saw an iguana fully four
feet long glide silently down the trunk of a tree, the branches of
which were loaded with epiphytes. Captain Shaw asked the imaum of one
of the mosques of Malacca about alligator's eggs a few days ago, and
his reply was, that the young that went down to the sea became
alligators, and those which came up the rivers became iguanas. At
daylight, after coffee and bananas, we left the hill, and after an
accident, promptly remedied by Mr. Hayward, reached Serambang when the
sun was high in the heavens. I should think that there are very few
circumstances which Mr. Hayward is not prepared to meet. He has a
reserve of quiet strength which I should like to see fully drawn upon.
He has the scar of a spear wound on his brow, which Captain Murray says
was received in holding sixty armed men at bay, while he secured the
retreat of some helpless persons. Yet he continues to be much burdened
by his responsibility for these fair girls, who, however, are enjoying
themselves thoroughly, and will be none the worse.
We had scarcely returned when a large company of Chinamen, carrying
bannerets and joss-sticks, came to the Residency to give a spectacle or
miracle-play, the first part consisting of a representation of a huge
dragon, which kicked, and jumped, and crawled, and bellowed in a manner
totally unworthy of that ancient and splendid myth; and the second, of
a fierce melee, or succession of combats with spears, shields, and
battle-axes. The performances were accompanied by much drumming, and by
the beating of tom-toms, an essentially infernal noise, which I cannot
help associating with the orgies of devil-worship. The "Capitan China,"
in a beautiful costume, sat with us in the veranda to see the
performance.
I have written a great deal about the Chinese and very little about the
Malays, the nominal possessors of the country, but the Chinese may be
said to be everywhere, and the Malays nowhere. You have to look for
them if you want to see them. Besides, the Chinese are as ten to two of
the whole population. Still the laws are administered in the name of
the Datu Klana, the Malay ruler. The land owned by Malays is being
measured, and printed title-deeds are being given, a payment of 2s. an
acre per annum being levied instead of any taxes on produce. Export
duties are levied on certain articles, but the navigation of the rivers
is free. Debt slavery, one curse of the Malay States, has been
abolished by the energy of Captain Murray with the cordial co-operation
of the Datu Klana, and now the whole population have the status and
rights of free men. It is a great pity that this Prince is in Malacca,
for he is said to be a very enlightened ruler. The photograph which I
inclose (from which the engraving is taken) is of the marriage of his
daughter, a very splendid affair. The buffalo in front was a marriage
present from the Straits Government, and its covering was of cloth of
gold thick with pearls and precious stones.
We visited yesterday a Malay kampong called Mambu, in order to pay an
unceremonious visit to the Datu Bandar, the Rajah second in rank to the
reigning prince. His house, with three others, a godown on very high
stilts, and a mound of graves whitened by the petals of the Frangipani,
with a great many cocoa-nut and other trees, was surrounded, as Malay
dwellings often are, by a high fence, within which was another
inclosing a neat, sanded level, under cocoa-palms, on which his
"private residence" and those of his wives stand. His secretary, a
nice-looking lad in red turban, baju, and sarong, came out to meet us,
followed by the Datu Bandar, a pleasant, able-looking man, with a
cordial manner, who shook hands and welcomed us. No notice had been
given of our visit, and the Rajah, who is reclaiming and bringing into
good cultivation much of his land, and who sets the example of working
with his own hands, was in a checked shirt, and a common, checked, red
sarong. Vulgarity is surely a disease of the West alone, though, as in
Japan, one sees that it can be contagious, and this Oriental, far from
apologizing for his dishabille, led us up the steep and difficult
ladder by which his house is entered with as much courteous ease as if
he had been in his splendors.
I thoroughly liked his house. It is both fitting and tasteful. We
stepped from the ladder into a long corridor, well-matted, which led to
a doorway with a gold-embroidered silk or valance, and a looped-up
portiere of white-flowered silk or crepe. This was the entrance to a
small room very well proportioned, with two similar doorways, curtained
with flowered silk, one leading to a room which we did not see, and the
other to a bamboo gridiron platform, which in the better class of Malay
houses always leads to a smaller house at the back, where cooking and
other domestic operations are carried on, and which seems given up to
the women. There was a rich, dim light in the room, which was cool and
wainscoted entirely with dark red wood, and there was only one long,
low window, with turned bars of the same wood. There were three
handsome cabinets with hangings of gold and crimson embroidery, and an
ebony frame containing a verse of the Koran in Arabic characters hung
over one doorway. In accordance with Mohammedan prohibitions, there was
no decoration which bore the likeness of any created thing, but there
were some artistic arabesques under the roof. The furniture, besides
the cabinets, consisted of a divan, several ebony chairs, a round table
covered with a cool yellow cloth, and a table against the wall draped
with crimson silk flowered with gold. The floor was covered with fine
matting, over which were Oudh rugs in those mixtures of toned-down rich
colors which are so very beautiful. Richness and harmony characterized
the room, and it was distinctively Malay; one could not say that it
reminded one of anything except of the flecked and colored light which
streams through dark, old, stained glass.
The Datu Bandar's brother and uncle came in, the first a very handsome
Hadji, with a bright, intelligent countenance. He has lived in Mecca
for eight years studying the Koran under a renowned teacher, and in
this quest of Mussulman learning has spent several thousand dollars.
"We never go to Mecca to trade," he said; "we go for religious purposes
only." These men looked superb in their red dresses and turbans,
although the Malays are anything but a handsome race. Their hospitality
was very graceful. Many of the wealthier Mohammedans, though they don't
drink wine, keep it for their Christian guests, and they offered us
champagne, which is supposed to be an irresistible temptation to the
Christian palate. On our refusing it they brought us cow's milk and
most delicious coffee with a very fragrant aroma, and not darker in
color than tea of an average strength. This was made from roasted
coffee leaves. The berries are exported. A good many pretty, quiet
children stood about, but though the Rajah gave us to understand that
they were the offspring of three mothers, we were not supposed to see
any of "the mean ones within the gates."
Our hosts had a good deal to say, and did not leave us to entertain
them, though we are but "infidel dogs." That we are regarded as such,
along with all other unbelievers, always makes me feel shy with
Mohammedans. Some time ago, when Captain Shaw pressed on the Malays the
impropriety of shooting Chinamen, as they were then in the habit of
doing, the reply of one of them was, "Why not shoot Chinamen? they've
no religion;" and though it would be highly discourteous in members of
a ruled race to utter this sentiment regarding their rulers, I have not
the least doubt that it is their profound conviction concerning
ourselves.
Nothing shows more the honesty and excellence of Captain Murray's
purposes than that he should be as much respected and loved as he is in
spite of a manner utterly opposed to all Oriental notions of dignity,
whether Malay or Chinese. I have mentioned his abruptness, as well as
his sailor-like heartiness, but they never came into such strong relief
as at the Datu Bandar's, against the solemn and dignified courtesy of
our hosts.
We returned after dark, had turtle-soup and turtle-steak, not near so
good as veal, which it much resembles, for dinner; sang "Auld Lang
Syne," which brought tears into the Resident's kindly eyes, and are now
ready for an early start to-morrow.
Stadthaus, Malacca.--We left Serambang before daylight on Thursday in
buggies, escorted by Captain Murray, the buggies, as usual, being lent
by the Chinese "Capitans." Horses had been sent on before, and after
changing them we drove the second stage through most magnificent
forest, until they could no longer drag the buggies through the mud, at
which point of discomfiture three saddled ponies and two chairs were
waiting to take us through the jungle to the river. We rode along an
infamous track, much of it knee-deep in mud, through a green and silent
twilight, till we emerged upon something like English park and
fox-cover scenery, varied by Malay kampongs under groves of palms. In
the full blaze of noon we reached the Linggi police station, from which
we had started in the sampan, and were received by a company of police
with fixed bayonets. We dined in the police station veranda, and as the
launch had been obliged to drop down the river because the water was
falling, we went to Sempang in a native boat, paddled by four Malays
with paddles like oval-ended spades with spade handles, a guard of
honor of policemen going down with us. There we took leave of our most
kind and worthy host, who, with tears in his kind eyes, immediately
turned up the river to dwell alone in his bungalow with his bull-dog,
his revolver, and his rifle, a self-exiled man.*
[*In 1881, Captain Murray, feeling ill after prolonged exposure to the
sun, went to Malacca, where he died a few days afterward at the house of
his friend Mr. Hayward. Sir F. A. Weld writes of him in a dispatch to
Lord Kimberley:--"I cannot close this notice of the State of Sungei
Ujong without recalling the memory of Captain Murray, so lately its
Resident, to whom it owes much, and who was devoted to its people and
interests. A man of great honesty of purpose and kindliness of heart,
Captain Murray possessed many of those qualities which are required for
the successful administration of a Malay State, and though he labored
under the disadvantage of want of knowledge of the native tongue, he yet
was able to attach to himself, in a singular manner, the affections of
all around him. For the last six years, Captain Murray has successfully
advised in the administration of the Government of Sungei Ujong,
consolidating order and good government, and doing much to open out the
country and develop its resources. His name will ever be associated with
its prosperity, and his memory be long fresh in the hearts of its
inhabitants."]
After it grew dark we had the splendid sight of a great tract of forest
on fire close to the sea. We landed here at a pier eight hundred feet
long, accessible to launches at high water, where several peons and two
inspectors of police met us. Our expedition has been the talk of the
little foreign world of Malacca. We had an enthusiastic welcome at
Government House, but Captain Shaw says he will never forgive himself
for not writing to Captain Murray in time to arrange our transport, and
for sending us off so hurriedly with so little food, but I hope by
reiteration to convince him that thereby we gained the night on the
Linggi river, which, as a traveling experience, is worth all the rest.