Tiger Mosquitoes--Insect Torments--A Hadji's Fate--Malay Custom--Oaths
and Lies--A False Alarm
THE RESIDENCY, KLANG, February 7.
I have had two days of supposed quiet here after the charming
expedition to Langat. The climate seems very healthy. The mercury has
been 87 degrees daily, but then it falls to 74 degrees at night. The
barometer, as is usual so near the equator, varies only a few tenths of
an inch during the year. The rainfall is about 130 inches annually. It
is most abundant in January, February and March, and at the change of
the monsoon, and there is enough all the year round to keep vegetation
in beauty. Here, on uninteresting cleared land with a featureless
foreground and level mangrove swamps for the middle distance, it must
be terribly monotonous to have no change of seasons, no hope of the
mercury falling below 80 degrees in the daytime, or of a bracing wind,
or of any marked climatic changes for better or worse all life through.
The mosquitoes are awful, but after a few months of more or less
suffering the people who live here become inoculated by the poison, and
are more bothered than hurt by the bites. I am almost succumbing to
them. The ordinary pests are bad enough, for just when the evenings
become cool, and sitting on the veranda would be enjoyable; they begin
their foray, and specially attack the feet and ankles; but the tiger
mosquitoes of this region bite all day, and they do embitter life. In
the evening all the gentlemen put on sarongs over their trousers to
protect themselves, and ladies are provided with sarongs which we draw
over our feet and dresses, but these wretches bite through two "ply" of
silk or cotton; and, in spite of all precautions, I am dreadfully
bitten on my ankles, feet, and arms, which are so swollen that I can
hardly draw on my sleeves, and for two days stockings have been an
impossibility, and I have had to sew up my feet daily in linen! The
swellings from the bites have become confluent, and are scarlet with
inflammation. It is truly humiliating that "the crown of things" cannot
defend himself against these minute enemies, and should be made as
miserable as I am just now.
But it is a most healthy climate, and when I write of mosquitoes, land
leeches, centipedes and snakes, I have said my say as to its evils. I
will now confess that I was bitten by a centipede in my bath-house in
Sungei Ujong, but I at once cut the bite deeply with a penknife,
squeezed it, and poured ammonia recklessly over it, and in a few hours
the pain and swelling went off.
I had been to the fort, the large barrack of the military police, and
Mr. Syers showed me many things. In the first place, a snake about
eight feet long was let out and killed. The Malays call this a
"two-headed" snake, and there is enough to give rise to the ignorant
statement, for after the proper head was dead the tail stood up and
moved forward. The skin of this reptile was marked throughout with
broad bands of black and white alternately. There was an ill-favored
skull of a crocodile hanging up to dry, with teeth three inches long.
One day lately a poor Hadji was carried off by one, and shortly
afterwards this monster was caught, and on opening it they found the
skull of the Hadji, part of his body, a bit of his clothing, and part
of a goat. I brought away as spoils tiger's teeth and claws,
crocodile's teeth, bear's teeth, etc.
I went also to the Government offices. The skin of a superb tiger,
which was killed close to Klang after it had devoured six men,
decorated the entrance. I heard two cases tried before the Resident.
The first criminal was a Malay, who was "in trouble" for the very
British crime of nearly beating his wife to death. She said she did not
want to prosecute him, but to get a divorce. She was told to apply to
the Imaum, and the man was bound over to keep the peace for six months.
The next case was a very common one here, and the court was crowded
with Chinese onlookers. A Chinaman had bought a girl (very nice-looking
she was), and now a man wants to marry her, upon which her owner
produces a promissory note from her, and demands $165 as her price! It
was impossible to make him understand that the transaction is utterly
illegal and immoral. The Resident addressed some very strong and just
words to this man in reprobation of his conduct, which were translated
for the benefit of the crowd.
I cannot elicit anything very definite, here or elsewhere, about the
legal system under which criminals are tried in these States.
Apparently, murder, robbery, forgery, and violent assault come under
English criminal law, and must be equally punishable whether committed
by a Briton, a Chinaman, or a Malay. But then nobody, except a
Christian, can be punished for bigamy. So criminal law even undergoes
modification by local custom; and the four wives of the Mussulman, and
the subordinate wives of the Chinaman, have an equal claim to
recognition with the one wife of the Englishman. Even Mohammedan law,
by which the Malays profess to be ruled, is modified by Malay custom,
which asserts itself specially in connection with marriage, its
frequent attendant repudiation, and inheritance.
The "Malay custom" (adat Malayu) seems to have been originally a just
and equitable code, though ofttimes severe in its punishments, as you
will see if you can get Newbold's _Malacca_, and was probably suited to
the people; but it has undergone such clippings and emendations by the
successive Rajahs or Sultans of these native States, that the custom
now in force bears a very faint resemblance to the original adat. It is
said, indeed, that each alteration has been for the worse, and that now
any chief who introduces anything of his own will, justifies it as
"adat Malayu." Mr. Swettenham, the Assistant Colonial Secretary, says
that the few upright Rajahs who exist say that there is no longer any
"adat Malayu," but that everything is done by "adat Suka hate," i.e.,
the custom by which a man can best suit his own inclination.
So it seems that a most queerly muddled system of law prevails under
our flag, Mohammedan law, modified by degenerate and evil custom, and
to some extent by the discretion of the residents, existing alongside
of fragments of English criminal law, or more perhaps correctly of
"justice's justice," the Resident's notions of "equity," overriding all
else.* Surely, as we have practically acquired those States, and are
responsible for their good government, we ought to give them the
blessing of a simple code of law, of which the residents shall be only
the responsible interpreters, modified by the true "Malay custom" of
course, but under the same conditions which are giving such growing
satisfaction to the peoples of India and Ceylon.
[*A Colonial friend tells me that he asked an English magistrate in one
of the native States, by what law--English, Colonial, or Malay--he had
sentenced some culprits to three years' imprisonment, and that the reply
was a shrug, and "The rascals were served right."]
The oaths are equally inscrutable, and probably no oath, however
terrible in formula, would restrain a Chinese coolie witness from
telling a lie, if he thought it would be to his advantage.*
[*Sir Benson Maxwell, late Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements, to
whose kindness I am much indebted, wrote to me lately thus: "In China I
believe an oath is rarely taken; when it is, it is in the form of an
imprecation. The witness cuts off a cock's head, and prays that he may
be so treated if he speaks falsely." "Would you cut off a cock's head to
that?" I once asked a Chinese witness who had made a statement which I
did not believe. "I would cut off an elephant's head to it," he replied.
In the Colonial courts, Chinamen are sworn by burning a piece of paper
on which is written some imprecation on themselves if they do not speak
the truth.]
I went to see the jail, a tolerable building--a barred cage below, and
a long room above--standing in a graveled courtyard, surrounded by a
high wall. Formerly there were no prisons, and criminals were punished
on the spot, either by being krissed, shot, or flogged. Here they have
a liberal diet of rice and salt fish, and "hard labor" is only mild
work on the roads. The prisoners, forty-two adult men, were drawn up in
a row, and Mr. Syers called the roll, telling the crime of each man,
and his conduct in prison; and most of those who had conducted
themselves well were to be recommended to the Sultan for remission of
part of their sentences. "Flog them if they are lazy," the Resident
often said; but Mr. Syers says that he never punishes them except under
aggravated circumstances. The prisoners are nearly all Chinamen, and
their crimes are mostly murder, gang-robbery, assault, and theft.
About half of them were in chains. There is an unusual mortality in the
prison, attributed, though possibly not _attributable_, to the enforced
disuse of opium. We went also to the hospital, mainly used by the
police, a long airy shed, with a broad shelf on each side. Mr. Klyne,
the apothecary, a half-caste, has a good many Malay dispensary
patients.
On our return, four Malay women, including the Imaum's wife, came to
see me. Each one would have made a picturesque picture, but they had no
manners, and seized on my hands, which are coarsened, reddened, and
swelled from heat and mosquito bites, all exclaiming, "chanti!
chanti!"--pretty! pretty! I wondered at their bad taste, specially as
they had very small and pretty hands themselves, with almond-shaped
nails.
In the evening the "establishment" dined at the Residency. After
dinner, as we sat in the darkness in the veranda, maddened by mosquito
bites, about 9:30, the bugle at the fort sounded the "alarm," which was
followed in a few seconds by the drum beating "to quarters," and in
less than five minutes every approach to the Residency was held by men
with fixed bayonets, and fourteen rounds of ball-cartridges each in
their belts, and every road round Klang was being patrolled by pickets.
I knew instinctively that it was "humbug," arranged to show the
celerity with which the little army could be turned out; and shortly an
orderly arrived with a note--"False alarm;" but Klang never subsided
all night, and the Klings beat their tom-toms till daylight. I am
writing at dawn now, in order that my letter may "catch the mail."