A Joyous Welcome--A Severe Mortification--The British Resident--Daily
Visitors--Rajah Dris--A Tipsy Ape--Marriage Ceremonies--Marriage
Festivities--Malay Children--The Rajah Muda Yusuf--A Dreary
Funeral--Fascinating Companionship--A Cocoa-Nut Gatherer--The Argus
Pheasant--An Opium Wreck--Rhinoceros
Horns--Elephant-Taming--Petrifying Influences of Islamism--A Dwindling
Race
February 17.--I was very glad that yesterday was Sunday, so that I had
a quiet day, for nearly twelve hours of jungle riding on an elephant
makes one very stiff and sleepy. Three days of solitude, meals in the
company of apes, elephant excursions, wandering about alone, and free,
open air, tropical life in the midst of all luxuries and comforts, have
been very enchanting. At night, when the servants had retired to their
quarters and the apes to the roof, and I was absolutely alone in the
bungalow, the silent Oriental sentries motionless below the veranda
counting for nothing, and without a single door or window to give one
the feeling of restraint, I had some of the "I'm monarch of all I
survey" feeling; and when drum beat and bugle blast, and the turning
out of the Sikh guard, indicated that the Resident was in sight, I felt
a little reluctant to relinquish the society of animals, and my
"solitary reign," which seemed almost "ancient" also.
When Mr. Low, unattended as he always is, reached the foot of the
stairs the retriever leapt down with one bound, and through the air
over his head fled Mahmoud and Eblis, uttering piercing cries, the
siamang, though keeping at a distance, adding to the jubilations, and
for several minutes I saw nothing of my host, for these creatures,
making every intelligent demonstration of delight, were hanging round
him with their long arms; the retriever nearly wild with joy, but
frantically jealous; all the creatures welcoming him more warmly than
most people would welcome their relations after a long absence. Can it
be wondered at that people like the society of these simple, loving,
unsophisticated beings?
Mr. Low's arrival has inflicted a severe mortification on me, for
Eblis, who has been absolutely devoted to me since I rescued him from
Mahmoud, has entirely deserted me, takes no notice of me, and seems
anxious to disclaim our previous acquaintance! I have seen children do
just the same thing, so it makes the kinship appear even closer. He
shows the most exquisite devotion to his master, caresses him with his
pretty baby hands, murmurs ouf in the tenderest of human tones, and
sits on his shoulder or on his knee as he writes, looking up with a
strange wistfulness in his eyes, as if he would like to express himself
in something better than a monosyllable.
This is a curious life. Mr. Low sits at one end of the veranda at his
business table with Eblis looking like his familiar spirit, beside him.
I sit at a table at the other end, and during the long working hours we
never exchange one word. Mahmoud sometimes executes wonderful capers,
the strange, wild, half-human face of the siamang peers down from the
roof with a half-trustful, half-suspicious expression; the retriever
lies on the floor with his head on his paws, sleeping with one eye
open, always on the watch for a coveted word of recognition from his
master, or a yet more coveted opportunity of going out with him; tiffin
and dinner are silently served in the veranda recess at long intervals;
the sentries at the door are so silently changed that one fancies that
the motionless blue turbans and scarlet coats contain always the same
men; in the foreground the river flows silently, and the soft airs
which alternate are too feeble to stir the over-shadowing palm-fronds
or rustle the attap of the roof. It is hot, silent, tropical. The sound
of Mr. Low's busy pen alone breaks the stillness during much of the
day; so silent is it that the first heavy drops of the daily tropical
shower on the roof have a startling effect.
Mr. Low is greatly esteemed, and is regarded in the official circles of
the Settlements as a model administrator. He has had thirty years'
experience in the East, mainly among Malays, and has brought not only a
thoroughly idiomatic knowledge of the Malay language, but a sympathetic
insight into Malay character to his present post. He understands the
Malays and likes them, and has not a vestige of contempt for a dark
skin, a prejudice which is apt to create an impassable gulf between the
British official and the Asiatics under his sway. I am inclined to
think that Mr. Low is happier among the Malays and among his apes and
other pets than he would be among civilized Europeans!
He is working fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. I think that work
is his passion, and a change of work his sole recreation. He devotes
himself to the promotion of the interests of the State, and his evident
desire is to train the native Rajahs to rule the people equitably. He
seems to grudge every dollar spent superfluously on the English
establishment, and contents himself with this small and old-fashioned
bungalow. In this once disaffected region he goes about unarmed, and in
the daytime the sentries only carry canes. His manner is as quiet and
unpretending as can possibly be, and he speaks to Malays as
respectfully as to Europeans, neither lowering thereby his own dignity
nor theirs. Apparently they have free access to him during all hours of
daylight, and as I sit writing to you or reading, a Malay shadow
constantly falls across my paper, and a Malay, with silent, cat-like
tread glides up the steps and appears unannounced in the veranda, on
which Mr. Low at once lays aside whatever he is doing, and quietly
gives himself to the business in hand. The reigning prince, the Rajah
Muda Yusuf, and Rajah Dris, are daily visitors; the former brings a
troop of followers with him, and they remain outside, their red sarongs
and picturesque attitudes as they lounge in the shade, giving to the
place that "native" air which everywhere I love, at least where
"natives" are treated as I think that they ought to be, and my
requirements are pretty severe!
I am painfully aware of the danger here, as everywhere, of forming
hasty and inaccurate judgments, and of drawing general conclusions from
partial premises, and on my present tour there is the added risk of
seeing things through official spectacles; but still certain things lie
on the surface, and a traveler must be very stupid indeed if he does
not come to an approximately just conclusion concerning them. As, for
instance, it is easy to see that far in the interior of the Malay
Peninsula, in regions rarely visited by Europeans, themselves without
advisers, and away from the influence of public opinion, dealing with
weak rulers to whom they represent preponderating brute force in the
last resort, the position of "Resident" is very much what the
individual man chooses to make it. Nor is it difficult to perceive
whether the relations between the English official and the natives are
hearty and cordial, or sullen and distrustful, or whether the Resident
makes use of his position for purposes of self-aggrandizement, and
struts tempestuously and swaggeringly before the Malays, or whether he
devotes his time and energies to the promotion of prosperity, good
order, and progress, in a firm and friendly spirit.
After a very quiet day we went at sunset, to see Rajah Dris, not taking
the dog. The trifling matter of the dog being regarded as an
abomination is one of the innumerable instances of the ingrained
divergence between Moslem and Christian feeling. Rajah Dris lives in a
good house, but it is Europeanized, and consequently vulgarized. He
received us very politely on the stairs, and took us into a sitting-
room in which there were various ill-assorted European things. His
senior wife was brought in, a dull, heavy-looking woman, a daughter of
the Rajah Muda Yusuf, and after her a number of slave women and babies,
till the small room was well filled. The Rajah hospitably entertained
us with tea, milk, and preserved bananas; but I noticed with regret
that the white table-cloth was much soiled, and that the china and
glass were in very bad taste. The house and its equipments are a
distressing contrast to those of the Datu Bandar in Sungei Ujong, who
adheres closely to Malay habits. Rajah Dris sent a servant the whole
way back with us, carrying a table lamp.
to-day the mercury was at 90 degrees for several hours. The nights,
however, are cool enough for sleep. I have lately taken to the Malay
custom of a sleeping mat, and find it cooler than even the hardest
mattress. I did not sleep much, however, for so many rats and lizards
ran about my room. These small, bright-eyed lizards go up the walls in
search of flies. They dart upon the fly with very great speed, but just
as you think that they are about to swallow him they pause for a second
or two and then make the spring. I have never seen a fly escape during
this pause, which looks as if the lizard charmed or petrified his
victim. The Malays have a proverb based upon this fact: "Even the
lizard gives the fly time to pray." There were other noises; for wild
beasts, tigers probably, came so near as to scare the poultry and
horses, and roared sullenly in the neighborhood for a long time, and
the sentries challenged two people, after which I heard a messenger
tell Mr. Low of a very distressing death.
February. 18.--Major Swinburne and Captain Walker arrived in the
morning, and we had a grand tiffin at twelve, and Mahmoud was allowed
to sit on the table, and he ate sausages, pommeloe, bananas,
pine-apple, chicken and curry, and then seizing a long glass of
champagne, drank a good deal before it was taken from him. If
drunkenness were not a loathsome human vice, it would have been most
amusing to see it burlesqued by this ape. He tried to seem sober and to
sit up, but could not, then staggered to a chair, trying hard to walk
steadily, and nodding his head with a would-be witty but really
obfuscated look; then, finding that he could not sit up, he reached a
cushion and lay down very neatly, resting his head on his elbow and
trying to look quite reasonable, but not succeeding, and then he fell
asleep.
After tiffin a Rajah came and asked me to go with him to his house, and
we walked down with his train of followers and my Malay attendant. It
was a very nice house, with harmonious coloring and much deep shadow.
It soon filled with people. There were two women, but not having an
interpreter, I could not tell whether they were the chief's wives or
sisters. He showed me a number of valuable krises, spears and parangs,
and the ladies brought sherbet and sweetmeats, and they were altogether
very jolly, and made me pronounce the Malay names of things, and the
women laughed heartily when I pronounced them badly. They showed me
some fine diamonds, very beautifully set in that rich, red "gold of
Ophir" which makes our yellow western gold look like a brazen
imitation, as they evidently thought, for they took off my opal ring,
and holding the gold against their own ornaments, made gestures of
disapproval. I think that opals were new to them, and they were
evidently delighted with their changing colors.
Mussulman law is very stringent as to some of the rights of wives. In
Malay marriage contracts it is agreed that all savings and "effects"
are to be the property of husband and wife equally, and are to be
equally divided in case of divorce. A man who insists on divorcing his
wife not only has to give her half his effects, but to repay the sum
paid as the marriage portion. It appears that polygamy is rare, except
among the chiefs.
Marriage is attended with elaborate arrangements among these people,
and the female friends of both parties usually make the "engagement,"
after which the bridegroom's friends go to the bride's father, talk
over the dowry, make presents, and pay the marriage expenses. Commonly,
especially among the higher classes, the bridegroom does not see the
lady's face until the marriage day. Marriage is legalized by a
religious ceremony, and then if the wife be grown up her husband takes
her to his own home. Girls are married at fourteen or fifteen, and
although large families are rare, they look old women at forty.
On the day before the marriage expenses are paid by the bridegroom, the
bride-elect has her teeth filed. It is this process which gives the
Malay women, who are very pretty as children, their very repulsive
look. It produces much the same appearance of wreck and ruin as
blackening the teeth does in Japan, and makes a smile a thing to be
dreaded. Young girls are not allowed to chew betel, which stains
badly, and have white, pearly teeth, but these are considered like the
teeth of animals. The teeth are filed down to a quarter of their
natural length by means of a hard Sumatran stone, or fine steel file.
The operation lasts about an hour, and the gums continue swelled and
painful for some days. After they have recovered, the blackening of the
teeth by means of betel chewing is accelerated by means of a black
liquid obtained by burning cocoa-nut shells on iron, Three days before
the marriage ceremony henna is applied to the nails of the hands and
feet, and also to the palms of the hands, and the hair is cut short
over the forehead, something in the style of a "Gainsborough fringe."
The wedding feast is a very grand affair. Goats and buffaloes are
killed, and the friends and relatives of the bride send contributions
of food. The wedding decorations are family property, and descend from
mother to daughter, and both bride and bridegroom are covered with
flowers, jewels, and gay embroidery. The bride sits in state and
receives the congratulatory visits of her relatives and friends, and
after the actual ceremony is over, the newly-married couple sit on a
seat raised above the guests, and the sirih and betel-nut are largely
chewed. There are "floral decorations," music, and feasting; all
strangers are made welcome; the young men spend the afternoon in games,
among which cock-fighting usually plays a prominent part, and the
maidens amuse themselves in a part of the house screened off from the
rest of the guests by curtains, and made very gay.
As religious ceremonies attend upon marriage and death, so on the birth
of a child the father puts his mouth to the ear of the infant and
solemnly pronounces what is called the Azan or "Allah Akbar," the name
of the one God being the first sound which is allowed to fall upon his
ears on entering the world, as it is the last sound which he hears on
leaving it. There is a form of prayer which is used at births, and
another on the seventh day afterward, when the child's head is shaved.
The sage femme remains for forty days with the mother, who on the
fortieth day makes the ceremonial purifications and prayers which are
customary, and then returns to her ordinary duties. The child, as soon
as it can speak, learns to recite prayers and passages from the Koran,
and is very early grounded in the distinctive principles of Islam.
The children of both sexes are very pretty, but with strangers they are
very shy and timid. They look very innocent, and are docile, gentle and
obedient, spending much of their time in taming their pets and playing
with them, and in playing games peculiar to their age. Except in one or
two cases in Sungei Ujong, I have not seen a child with eye or skin
disease, or any kind of deformity.
There have been Rajahs all day in the veranda, and their followers
sitting on the steps, all received by Mr. Low with quiet courtesy, and
regaled with tea or coffee and cigarettes. A short time ago the
reigning prince, who does not appear to be a cypher, came with a great
train of followers, some of them only wearing sarongs, a grandson, to
whom he is much attached, and the deposed Sultan's two boys, of whom I
told you before. They are in Malay clothing, and seem to have lost
their vivacity, or at least it is in abeyance. Before I came here, I
understood from many people that "His Highness" is very generally
detested. So, also, says Sir Benson Maxwell in _Our Malay Conquests_.
Major M'Nair in his amusing book on Perak says: "He is a man over
middle age, and is described as being of considerable ability, feared
and hated by many of the chiefs, and as being of a fierce and cruel
disposition, but he was a proved man as to his loyalty" (to British
interests), "and there being no desire on the part of the Government to
annex the State of Perak, his appointment was the wisest course that,
under the circumstances, could be pursued." This is all that the
greatest apologist for British proceedings in Perak has to say.
I was not prepossessed in his favor before I came, for among other
stories of his cruel disposition, I was told that it was "absolutely
true" that three years ago he poured boiling water down the back of a
runaway female slave who had been recaptured, and then put a red ant's
nest upon it. If "piracy" is to be the term applied to levying
blackmail, he was certainly a pirate, for he exacted a tenth of the
cargo of every boat which passed up his river, a Rajah higher up doing
the same thing. He is said to have a very strong character, to be
grasping, and to be a "brute;" but Mr. Low gets on very well with him
apparently. He is an elderly man, wearing a sort of fez on a shaven
head. He has a gray mustache. His brow is a fine one, and his face has
a look of force, but the lower part of it is coarse and heavy. He was
fanning himself with his fez, and when I crossed the veranda and gave
him a fan, he accepted it without the slightest gesture of thanks, as
if I had been a slave. When Mr. Low told him that I had been at
Koto-lamah, he said that the chief in whose house I had rested deserved
to be shot, and ought to be shot. He and Mr. Low talked business for an
hour; but all important matters are transacted in what is called a
native council.
I wrote that I believed myself to be the only European in Kwala Kangsa,
but I find that there was another at the time when I wrote thus--a
young man of good family, who came out here seeking an appointment. He
was sun-stricken three days ago, and violent fever and delirium set in,
during the height of which he overpowered four Sikhs who were taking
care of him, rushed out of doors, fell down exhausted, was carried
home, and died at four in the morning, his last delirious dreams being
of gambling and losing heavily.
The lamentable burial took place in the evening as the shadows fell.
This sums up the story--a career of dissipation, death at twenty-one, a
rough, oblong box, no one to be sorry. It made my heart ache for the
mother, who would have given much to be where I was, and see "the
dreary death train" move slowly to the dreary inclosure on a hill-top,
where the grass grows rank and very green round a number of white
wooden crosses, which mark the graves of the officers and soldiers who
fell in 1876. The Union Jack was thrown over the coffin, which was
carried by six Sikhs, and Mr. Low, Major Swinburne, Rajah Dris and some
followers, and Sultan Abdullah's two boys, who had nothing better to
do, followed it. By the time the grave was reached torches were
required, and the burial service was read from my prayer-book. It was
all sad and saddening.
The weather is still glorious, the winding Perak still mirrors in
scarcely rippled blue the intensely blue sky, "never wind blows
loudly," but soft airs rustle the trees. One could not lead a more
tropical life than this, with apes and elephants about one under the
cocoa-palms, and with the mercury ranging from 80 degrees to 90
degrees! Gorgeous, indeed, are the birds and butterflies and flowers;
but often when the erythrina and the Poinciana regia are strewing the
ground with their flaming blossoms, I think with a passionate longing
of the fragile Trientalis Europae, of crimson-tipped lichens, of faint
odors of half-hidden primroses, of whiffs of honey and heather from
purple moorlands, and of all the homely, fragrant, unobtrusive flowers
that are linked with you! I should like a chance of being "cold to the
bone!"
I have wasted too much of my time to-day upon the apes. They fascinate
me more daily. They look exactly like familiar demons, and certainly
anyone having them about him two hundred years ago would have been
burned as a wizard. When Mr. Low walks down the veranda, these two
familiars walk behind him with a stealthy tread. He is having a
business conversation just now with some Rajahs, whose numerous
followers are standing and lying about, and Eblis is sitting on his
shoulder with one arm round his neck, while Mahmoud sits on the table
opening letters, and the siamang, sitting on the rafter, is looking
down with an unpleasant look. Eblis condescends to notice me to-day,
and occasionally sits on my shoulder murmuring "Ouf! ouf!" the sweet
sound which means all varieties of affection and happiness. They say
wah-wah distinctly, and scream with rage like children, but have none
of the meaningless chatter of monkeys. It is partly their silence which
makes them such very pleasant companions. At sunrise, however, like
their forest brethren, they hail the sun for some minutes with a noise
which I have never heard them make again during the day, loud and
musical, as if uttered by human vocal organs, very clear and pleasant.
Doubtless the Malays like Mr. Low all the better for his love of pets.
At lunch they were both, as usual, sitting at the table. I am still
much afraid of Mahmoud, but Captain Walker is infatuated with him, and
likes his rough, jolly manners, and his love of fun and rough play. As
Assam was bringing me a cup of coffee this creature put out his long
arm, and with his face brimming over with frolic, threw the coffee over
the mat. Then he took up a long glass of beer and began to drink it
eagerly, but as Mr. Low disapproved of his being allowed to get tipsy a
second time, it was taken from him, upon which he took up the breast of
a fricasseed chicken and threw it at the offender. The miscreant did
every kind of ludicrous thing, finishing by pulling everyone to go out
with him, as he always does at that hour; and when he had succeeded in
getting us all out was in a moment at the top of a high tree, leaping
from branch to branch, throwing himself on coffee shrubs below,
swinging himself up again in a flash, leaping, bounding! a picture of
agility, strength, and happiness. The usual morning gathering of Rajahs
and their followers, with Klings and Sikhs, was there, and I suspect
that they thought adult Europeans very foolish for being amused with
these harum-scarum antics.
A follower had brought a "baboon," an ape or monkey trained to gather
cocoa-nuts, a hideous beast on very long legs when on all fours, but
capable of walking erect. They called him a "dog-faced baboon," but I
think they were wrong. He has a short, curved tail, sable-colored fur
darkening down his back, and a most repulsive, treacherous, and
ferocious countenance. He is fierce, but likes or at all events obeys
his owner, who held him with a rope fifty feet long. At present he is
only half tame, and would go back to the jungle if he were liberated.
He was sent up a cocoa-nut tree which was heavily loaded with nuts in
various stages of ripeness and unripeness, going up in surly fashion,
looking round at intervals and shaking his chain angrily. When he got
to the top he shook the fronds and stalks, but no nuts fell, and he
chose a ripe one, and twisted it round and round till its tenacious
fibers gave way, and then threw it down and began to descend, thinking
he had done enough, but on being spoken to he went to work again with
great vigor, picked out all the ripe nuts on the tree, twisted them all
off, and then came down in a thoroughly bad, sulky, temper. He was
walking erect, and it seemed discourteous not to go and thank him for
all his hard toil.
As I write I see a fascinating sight: three black apes sitting under
the roof in such a position that I can only see their faces, and they
are all leaning their chins on a beam, and with their wrinkled faces
and gray beards are looking exactly like -----. It is most interesting
to be among wild beasts, which, though tame, or partly so, are not in
captivity, and to see their great sagacity and their singular likeness
and unlikeness to us. I could dispense with the reptiles, though. Last
night there were seventeen lizards in my room and two in my slippers.
During the profound stillness of about 3 A.M., a crowd, hooting,
yelling, and beating clappers, passed not far off in the darkness, and
there was a sound of ravaging and rending caused by a herd of elephants
which had broken into the banana grounds.
Besides apes, elephants, dogs, and other pets, there are some fine
jungle-fowls, a pheasant, a "fire-back," I think, and an argus pheasant
of glorious beauty; but glorious is not quite the word either, for the
hundred-eyed feathers of its tail are painted rather in browns than
colors. These birds are under the charge of a poor Chinaman, who once
had money, but has gone to complete ruin from opium-smoking. His frame
is reduced to a skeleton covered with skin. I never saw such emaciation
even in an advanced stage of illness.
Just now I saw Mahmoud and Eblis walk into my room, and shortly
following them, I found that Mahmoud had drawn a pillow to the foot of
the bed, and was lying comfortably with his head upon it, and that
Eblis was lying at the other end. I do hope that you will not be tired
of the apes. To me they are so intensely interesting that I cannot help
writing about them. Eblis has been feverish for some days. I think he
has never recovered from the thrashing he got the day I came. He is
pining and growing very weak; he eats nothing but little bits of
banana, and Mr. Low thinks he is sure to die. It is a curious fact that
these apes, which are tamed by living with Europeans, acquire a great
aversion to Malays.
February 19.--Eblis became much worse while I was out yesterday, and I
fear will surely die. He can hardly hold anything in his cold, feeble
hands, and eats nothing. He has a strangely human, faraway look, just
what one sees in the eyes of children who have nearly done with this
world.
The heat is much greater to-day, there is less breeze, and the mercury
has reached 90 degrees, but in the absence of mosquitoes, and with
pine-apples and bananas always at hand, one gets on very well. But
mosquitoes do embitter existence and interfere with work. Apparently,
people never become impervious to the poison, as I thought they did,
and there is not a Malay in his mat hut, or a Chinese coolie in his
crowded barrack, who has not his mosquito curtains; and I have already
mentioned that the Malays light fires under their houses to smoke them
away. Last night a malignant and hideous insect, above an inch long, of
the bug species, appeared. The bite of this is as severe as the sting
of a hornet.
The jungle seems to be full of wild beasts, specially tigers, in this
neighborhood, and the rhinoceros is not uncommon. Its horn is worth
$15, but Rajah Muda Yusuf, who desires to have a monopoly of them, says
that there are horns with certain peculiar markings which can be sold
to the Chinese for $500* each to be powdered and used as medicine. Wild
elephants are abundant, but, like the rhinoceros, they ravage the deep
recesses of the jungle. All the tame elephants here, however, were
once wild, including the fifty which, with swords, dragons, bells,
krises with gold scabbards, and a few other gold articles, formed the
Perak regalia. The herds are hunted with tame, steady elephants, and on
a likely one being singled out, he is driven by slow degrees into a
strong inclosure, and there attached by stout rattan ropes to an
experienced old elephant, and fed on meager diet for some weeks, varied
with such dainties as sugar-cane and sweet cakes. The captive is
allowed to go and bathe, and plaster himself with mud, all the while
secured to his tame companion, and though he makes the most desperate
struggles for liberty, he always ends by giving in, and being led back
to his fastenings in the corral. At times a man gets upon him, sits on
his head, and walks upon his back. It is here generally about two years
before an elephant is regarded as thoroughly broken in and to be
trusted; and, as elsewhere, stories are told of elephant revenge and
keepers being killed. A full-grown elephant requires about 200 lbs. of
food a day. These animals are destructive to the cocoa-nut trees, and
when they get an opportunity they put their heads against them, and
then, with a queer swaying movement throw the weight of their bodies
over and over again against the stem till the palm comes down with a
crash, and the dainty monster regales himself with the blossoms and the
nuts. The Malays pet and caress them, and talk to them as they do to
their buffaloes. Half a ton is considered a sufficient load for a
journey if it be metal or anything which goes into small compass, but
if the burden be bulky, from four to six hundred weight is enough.
Except where there are rivers or roads suitable for bullock-carts or
pack bullocks, they do nearly all the carrying trade of Perak, carrying
loads on "elephant tracks" through the jungle. An elephant always puts
his foot into the hole which another elephant's foot has made, so that
a frequented track is nothing but a series of pits filled with mud and
water. Trying to get along one of these I was altogether baffled, for
it had no verge. The jungle presented an impassable wall of dense
vegetation on either side, the undergrowth and trees being matted
together by the stout, interminable strands of the rattan and other
tenacious creepers, including a thorn-bearing one, known among the
Malays as "tigers' claws," from the curved hook of the thorn. I think I
made my way for about seven feet. This was a favorable specimen of a
jungle track, and I now understand how the Malays, by felling two or
three trees, so that they lay across similar and worse roads, were able
to delay the British troops at a given spot for a day at a time.
[*It is possible that this was an exaggeration, and that the real price
is $50.]
One might think that elephants roaming at large would render
cultivation impossible, but they have the greatest horror of anything
that looks like a fence, and though they are almost powerful enough to
break down a strong stockade, a slight fence of reeds usually keeps
them out of padi, cane, and maize plantations.
Malays are gradually coming into Perak. It is said that there has been
recently a large immigration from Selangor. The Malay population is
fifty-seven thousand nearly, with a large preponderance of males, but
fifty-eight thousand have crowded into the little strip of land called
Province Wellesley, which is altogether under British rule, and
sixty-seven thousand into Malacca, which has the same advantage. I
suppose that slavery and polygamy have had something to do with the
diminution of the population, as well as small-pox. Formerly large
armies of fighting men could be raised in these States. Islamism is
always antagonistic to national progress. It seems to petrify or
congeal national life, placing each individual in the position of a
member of a pure theocracy, rather than in that of a patriotic citizen
of a country, or member of a nationality. In these States law,
government and social customs have no existence apart from religion,
and, indeed, they grow out of it.
It is strange that a people converted from Arabia, and partly, no
doubt, civilized both from Arabia and Persia, should never have
constructed anything permanent. If they were swept away to-morrow not a
trace of them except their metal work would be to be found. Civilized
as they are, they don't leave any more impress on the country than a
Red Indian would. They have not been destroyed by great wars, or great
pestilences, or the ravages of drink, nor can it be said that they
perish mysteriously, as some peoples have done, by contact with
Europeans; yet it is evident that the dwindling process has been going
on for several generations.