turtles are said to lay three times. The nests are dug between two and
three feet under the sand, and contain from about fifteen to thirty-five
eggs each. During the laying season boats are not allowed to stop at the
sands for fear they should disturb the turtles.
When the first set of eggs has been laid and the turtles have returned
to the river, the watchers open the nests and send the eggs up to the
Sultan. The second set of nests is opened by the royal party, and the
third is left to hatch, an operation that takes six months. There is no
sitting, the young turtles simply emerge from the sand, walk down into
the river and swim away.
It is said that if the first and second nests are left untouched, the
turtles themselves open them and scatter and destroy the eggs; but that,
after the third “lay,” they take their departure, having accomplished
their task.
Directly the watchers report that the turtles have made the second
nests, the Sultan and his family, with the neighbouring chiefs and their
families, take boat and paddle down the stream to Pâsir Tĕlor.
Fifteen or twenty large house-boats and several bamboo rafts containing
about one hundred and fifty people make an imposing procession. The rafts
are simply floating houses, with mat walls and a high thatched roof,
and are manned by crews of from four to sixteen polers; but the boats
are graceful and picturesque barges, of which the foundation is a long
dug-out of hard wood drawing very little water, the freeboard is raised
by the breadth of one or two planks, and over the stern half of the
boat is built a palm-thatched covering on a slight wooden frame, while
curtains secure privacy. Inside this house, the roof of which rises in a
sharp curve towards the stern, sit and lie on mats and cushions the owner
and his family or friends. The crew occupy the forward half of the boat,
where they sit to paddle down stream or stand to pole up. The steersman
has a high seat in the stern, from whence he is able to see clear of the
cabin-roof.
The covered portion of the barge which carries the Sultan’s principal
wife is decorated with six scarlet-bordered white umbrellas. Two officers
stand all day long, just outside the state-room, holding open black
umbrellas with silver fringes, and two others are in the bows with long
bamboo poles held close together and erect. The royal bugler sits on
the extreme end of the prow, and from time to time blows a call on the
antique silver trumpet of the regalia. Flags are flown, other boats carry
gongs and drums, and altogether the pleasure-fleet makes a brave show and
a considerable noise, attracting the attention of all the dwellers on the
riverine.
The journey from the Sultan’s palace at Kuala Kangsar occupies two days,
and on the morning of the third all the ladies of the party, with all
their attendants and children (a good many still in arms), disembark for
the ceremony of digging out the turtle-eggs.
The ladies are in their smartest garments and wear their costliest
jewels. It is a blaze of brilliant-coloured silks, of painted _sârongs_,
cloth-of-gold scarves, and embroidered gauze veils; of bright sunshades,
gold bracelets, necklaces, and bangles; of curious jewelled brooches,
massive hairpins, and rings flashing with the light of diamonds and
rubies.
The men appear in jackets, trousers, and _sârongs_ of hardly less
striking hues; but the horror of Western dyes and Western schemes of
colour has not yet demoralised the Malay’s innate sense of beauty and
fitness, and nothing offends the eye as all this wealth of bravery moves
slowly across the strand.
A scorching sun shines down on the gaily-clad figures with their
background of dark jungle, on the yellow sands and sparkling river, with
its burden of picturesque boats, and gives light and shadow to a charming
picture.
The watchers have marked with twigs the various nests, and each lady of
rank, with her little crowd of attendants, makes for one of these, and
with her hands begins to dig up the sand in search of the eggs. But the
nest is deep down, and the sides of the hole have a way of falling in on
the digger, so a man or boy is desired to remove the overburden and make
things easy for the lady. The overlying sand is quickly scooped out until
one or two of the white eggs are disclosed, and then the lady, sitting on
the edge and stooping far down, can just manage to reach the nest, and
the eggs are carefully handed up.
Besides the pleasure of actually removing the eggs with one’s own hand,
of displaying to admiring eyes a vision of taper fingers and rounded
wrist, of showing how little it matters that the costliest garments
should trail in the sand, there is the rivalry of whose nest yields
the largest number of eggs. Anything over twenty-five is considered a
satisfactory find.
By the time all the nests have been rifled, the sands are growing so hot
under the rays of the fiery sun that bare feet can hardly endure what
is little short of torture. There is an almost hurried return to the
boats, the finery is exchanged for simpler garments, and all the men and
many of the ladies take to the river, and there disport themselves in
a manner that is refreshing to sun-scorched bodies and the eyes of the
Western spectator who is fortunate enough to see how it is possible to be
unconventionally natural and yet perfectly modest.
It is only on such occasions as this that a strange man can see these
ladies unveiled and even so he is not expected to look at them or go very
near them; but their bathing-costume differs hardly at all from that
which they commonly wear, and they thoroughly enjoy this opportunity of
revelling in the clear waters of the sand-bedded stream.
Then every one scrambles back into the boats, which are pushed off into
deep water, the rowers seize their paddles and with beat of gong and the
musical notes of the silver _serûnai_, with jest and laughter, pennons
waving, and bright eyes sparkling behind the rainbow-coloured blinds, the
picturesque flotilla glides on its course down the long sunny reach,
in and out amongst the islets, round a heavily-wooded, deeply-shadowed
headland, past the riverside hamlets and the orchards, the stately palms,
the clusters of bamboo that overhang the water like great plumes of pale
green feathers, and so ever onward through sunlight and shadow till
another bourne is reached.
The graceful turn of the leading barge towards a sand-spit flanked by a
long inviting backwater, the roll of a drum and every prow is headed for
the shallows of the bank that divides the _âyer mâti_, the “dead water,”
from the living hurrying stream.
The boats arrange themselves in divisions, the crews land, make fires,
and boil the rice for their mid-day meal, while the cooking and
breakfasting of the members of the “court” is done on board the various
barges.
In this feudal and conservative country when the people eat they
_mâkan_, but the Raja does not _mâkan_, with him it is _santap_. When
“the masses” bathe they _mandi_, but the same operation in the case of
a Raja is called _sêram_; a chief or a beggar may sleep and that is
_tîdor_, but when the Raja sleeps he is said to _bĕr-âdu_. This does
not mean that a wide gulf divides Malay classes, there is rather that
communion as of the members of an old Scotch clan, but respect and
courtesy are characteristic of the race, a prized legacy which it is not
yet considered a sign of either independence or good manners to despise.
People of the same class, rajas and chiefs, children and parents,
brothers and sisters, speak to each other with studied deference and
never forget the little distinctions that mark fine shades of rank or
age. Boys and girls are as careful in the observance of these courtesies
as are their elders.
Education and contact with Europeans will alter all this, and in the
next century there will be more equality and probably less politeness
and fraternity. But then also there will be no royal preserves, no class
privileges, and no State junketings where noble and peasant meet in
generous rivalry of skill with a single desire to snatch from the toil,
the disappointments, and the sorrows of life one week of pleasure wherein
individual joy may grow greater in the knowledge that it is shared by
many.
Future possibilities do not disturb our friends, whose guiding principle
is rather “insufficient for the day is the pleasure thereof.” They
have attacks of hatred and gloom, and then they kill, if the desire is
strong enough, but these fits are rare, and when not actively engaged
in amusing themselves they are lotus-eating, sometimes figuratively,
sometimes in reality.
This is a time for action, and, the mid-day meal disposed of, all the men
of the party get ready their casting-nets and don the garments that will
least hamper the free use of their limbs and will not be injured by a
thorough wetting.
The backwater has a narrow and shallow entrance on the river, and this
entrance is staked across to guard it from what in the West would be
called poachers. Through the stakes a way has now been made wide enough
to admit of the passage of boats. The Sultan’s barge and a few other
house-boats have passed the barrier, and these are accompanied by a fleet
of fifty uncovered dug-outs, each with a light grating of split-bamboos
over half its length, and each carrying two or three paddlers, one of
whom steers and one man standing on the extreme end of the bow ready to
cast the net.
These nets are of local make, the mesh is small, the thread of twisted
strands of finest cotton, and the length varies according to the ability
of the owner to cast it. A very short net is five or six cubits in length
from centre to edge, a long one is twelve or thirteen cubits, and to
cast that with accuracy so that it reaches the water perfectly extended
requires a very skilful hand. The bottom or edge of the net is weighted
with small leaden rings that sink it rapidly through the water, while a
fine cord from the centre is attached to the right wrist of the thrower.
The net is usually dyed a dark brown with a solution made from the bark
of the mangrove.
The backwater where this annual netting is done is a long narrow strip
of fairly deep water widening slightly in the centre and contracting at
the ends. On one side it is bordered by a low grass-grown shore and on
the other by a jungle-covered bank from which the overhanging branches
cast dark shadows on the glassy surface, stirred here and there into tiny
wavelets by every passing zephyr.
By 3 P.M. all is ready; some of the oldest and most skilful netters stand
in the bows of the royal barges, a dozen young rajas are in dug-outs
and the others are occupied by their owners, men from the neighbouring
villages who have come to join in the sport.
The Sultan gives the signal, and the boats move off slowly and at once
form themselves into a crescent, with the royal barges in the centre.
The horns of the crescent draw towards each other, the boats make a
simultaneous in-turn, the circle is completed, and at the moment when
it becomes sufficiently circumscribed every net is cast, covering the
whole surface of the water within the ring of boats. Directly the nets
have been cast they sink, the paddlers back-water, and each net is slowly
drawn to the surface and the fish taken are disengaged from the fine
meshes and thrown into the boat under the bamboo grating.
Almost every net contains fish, and the numbers vary from two or three
to fifty or sixty bright silvery fishes weighing from half a pound to a
pound each.
The operation is then repeated, and the fleet of boats works its way
slowly from end to end of the backwater, a distance of about a mile.
Sometimes every net makes a good haul, sometimes only one or two do very
well, and all the rest indifferently. It is no easy matter with such
an insecure foothold to cast a long and heavy net, but, well done, the
act of casting is graceful and attractive. First the slack of the cord
is taken up in loops in the right hand and after it the net, until the
leaden rings clear the boat and reach to about the thrower’s knee. Then
with his left hand he takes up part of the skirt of the net and hangs
it over his right arm and shoulder. This done he seizes the balance of
the skirt in his left hand, swings his body backwards and then forwards
with a strong propelling movement of arm, shoulder, and back that sends
the net straight out over the water to fall perfectly extended, like a
huge brown cobweb, the outer edges sinking instantly under the weight of
the leaden rings and drawing together by reason of the resistance of the
inner surface of the net.
The game _looks_ easy enough, but try it and you will probably find
yourself in the water at the first cast with the net tied up into an
inextricable knot.
Watch the experienced hand. The boats are now at a bend in the middle of
the backwater, the circle is formed, the in-turn is given to the bows,
the ring narrows, and at this moment the scene is picturesque to a degree
and strangely weird.
Atmospheric changes come quickly here; the sky has become suddenly
overcast, a heavy rain-cloud is being rapidly driven before a rising
wind, and the water is now dark and gloomy. This _cordon_ of low black
boats, so close to each other that they almost touch, on every bow a
half-bent, quaintly-clad form with the net hanging in graceful folds
from arm and shoulder, while fifty dark earnest faces gaze eagerly on
the narrowing space. In that instant it flashes across the spectator’s
mind that some mystic rite of fell intent is to be performed within that
magic zone. Then heigh! Abracadabra! The word is given to cast, and from
fifty boats the nets fly out with a swirl and settle on the water with a
gentle hiss. But the skilful thrower waits for a second or two, knowing
that the fish, frightened by this rain of lead, will dash for the only
spot where there seems to be a gap. Then deftly he casts a net with a
diameter of forty feet, and the moment he strains the cord he realises
that he has made an extraordinary capture. He pulls the net up a little
way, and then, plunging his arms into the water, grasps the meshes on
either side and calls for help to raise the struggling mass of fish. All
eyes are fixed on the lucky Raja, and as the take is lifted into the boat
there are shouts of delight and congratulation and clapping of hands from
the ladies, who are keenly interested. By this single cast the thrower
has secured one hundred and twenty-one fish, and his contribution for the
afternoon is over seven hundred “tails.”
Just as the furthest end of the backwater is reached the rain, which has
been long threatening, comes down in torrents, and there is a race for
shelter and dry clothes. The dug-outs with three or four paddlers easily
beat the barges with a dozen, but long before the river is reached the
netters are as wet as the fish, and have a swim in the warm water of the
river before changing into dry clothes.
Then there is a lull in the storm, and the more enthusiastic return to
the netting and, unmindful of hunger, darkness, and rain, still cast the
nets till 10 P.M., when they return thoroughly tired out, but happy in
the knowledge that the bag numbers over ten thousand fish.
Amongst these late comers and most ardent sportsmen are several ladies
who, not satisfied with the ease and dignity of a royal barge, have
braved the elements and gone fasting to share the excitement of the
netting in the discomfort of the dug-outs.
That is how the Sultan of Perak’s annual fishing party takes its
pleasure, and about the very same time His Highness of Păhang will be
leading a similar expedition in the quiet waters of an old channel of the
Păhang River.
There, however, the method is rather different—the water is poisoned with
the juice of the _tuba_ root, and the stupefied fish are speared and
netted as they float and swim aimlessly about. The fun is much the same,
perhaps, but the pursuit is less sporting than by the means employed
in Perak. It is not however, perfectly easy to spear even drugged fish
without both skill and practice.
In Păhang, also, the pageant is conducted with much state and ancientry,
and, as the nature of the pastime requires only a moderate effort, the
ladies of the Harîm smile on the proceedings and, armed with silken nets
on hafts of gold, themselves essay to scoop up the scaly quarry. Amongst
the ladies of the Court are some the exceeding fairness of whose skin,
the perfect oval of their faces, and the glances of their liquid eyes so
embarrass the men of the party that many a spear flies wide of its mark.
There are some things still hidden from the ken of Cook and the race
of Globe trotters, and I do not fear to reveal the secrets of this
remote corner of the earth, for, if any be thereby induced to visit the
Peninsula in search of such displays as I have tried to describe, he will
meet with disappointment.
You cannot, in the language of Western culture, put a penny in the slot
and set in motion the wheels of this barbarous Eastern figure.
XIX
JAMES WHEELER WOODFORD BIRCH
Such was our friend, formed on the good old plan,
A true and brave and downright honest man
WHITTIER
On the 2nd November 1875, Mr. James Wheeler Woodford Birch, British
Resident of Perak, was assassinated by Malays at a place called Pâsir
Sâlak on the Perak River. I propose to describe why and how this murder
was committed.
Mr. Birch began life as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He abandoned the
sea for Government employment in Ceylon, where he spent the best years
of his life, and was promoted to be Government Agent of the Eastern
Province, one of the highest positions in the Island. In 1870 Mr. Birch
was appointed Colonial Secretary of the Straits Settlements, and when
Major-General Sir Andrew Clarke, R.E., then Governor of the Straits
Settlements, concluded the Pangkor Treaty with the Perak Chiefs in 1874
and introduced a new departure in the relations between the British
Government and the Malay States, he selected Mr. Birch for the difficult
post of adviser to the Sultan of Perak.
Mr. Birch assumed his duties in the end of 1874, and very soon found
that, looking to the people with whom he had to deal and his own
powerlessness to enforce an order, he had undertaken a well-nigh
impossible task. At that time the Malay Peninsula was a _terra incognita_
to white men, and the characteristics, customs, peculiarities and
prejudices of the Malay had yet to be learnt.
Of all the States in the Peninsula Perak was probably the least well
suited for the schooling of a Resident and the initiation of the
interesting but dangerous experiment of Government by the advice of a
British officer.
It had a large Malay population, people whose ancestors had for
generations belonged to the place and who were saturated with ancient
customs, prejudices, and superstitions that had to be learned, and with
many of which it was difficult to sympathise. It had an unusual number of
Rajas and Chiefs, each with some kind of privilege or vested interest.
The revolting practice of debt-slavery, under which the slaves often
suffered indescribable wrongs, was rife in the land, and, though contrary
to the Muhammadan religion, was supported and clung to by all the upper
classes. The State was torn by internal dissensions, the jealousies and
rivalries of opposing claimants to the Sultanship and other high offices.
The rivers and jungle tracks were the only means of getting about the
country. The white man was an unknown and unfeared quantity.
Mr. Birch, unfortunately, for all his long Eastern experience, knew very
little of Malays and almost nothing of their language, and, though he
always had with him a very capable Malay interpreter, the inability to
carry on a direct conversation with chiefs and people greatly increased
his difficulties. He was not, however, the man to sit down in the face
of opposition either to save himself trouble or to acknowledge defeat,
and the consequence was that his extraordinary energy in travelling about
the country, “spying out the land,” and his persistence in attempting to
redress grievances, to save lives, to bring the guilty to punishment,
and to induce the then Sultan, Abdullah and his immediate following to
mend their ways, earned him the determined opposition of all those
who disliked interference, and preferred the state of uncontrolled
lawlessness to which they were accustomed.
Mr. Birch lived in Perak as its Resident for barely twelve months, but
to trace with care the reasons why his relations with Abdullah grew
daily more strained till matters culminated in the assassination of the
Resident, would be to write a volume. It is sufficient to state a few of
the more prominent facts.
First, it is necessary to say in the most positive terms that Mr. Birch
was assassinated solely and entirely for political reasons, for the
reasons I have already given. He was white, he was a Christian and a
stranger, he was restless, climbed hills and journeyed all over the
country, he interfered with murderers and other evil-doers, he constantly
bothered the Sultan about business and kept pressing him to introduce
reforms, while every change is regarded by the Malay with suspicion and
distrust. That was his crime in their eyes; of personal feeling there
was none, wherever Mr. Birch went there were people who had to thank him
for some kindness, some attention. The Malays have always admitted this,
and, if it seems strange that I should make a point of the motive, it is
because Europeans who did not know have suggested that the Resident’s
murder was due to non-political causes, a suggestion for which there is
not a semblance of foundation.
By September 1875, matters had come to a deadlock. With the Resident,
in what was called the down-stream country, was a Sultan, Abdullah,
created by the British Government, but declining to accept the advice
of the Resident who had been appointed at his special request.
Abdullah’s opposition was mainly negative but absolutely effective, for
as the Resident could only tender advice and had no commission, and
no sufficient means to compel its adoption, his voice was that of one
“crying in the wilderness.” Up-stream there was another Sultan, Ismail,
elected by some of the chiefs but admitted to have no sufficient claim
to the post. Between the partisans of these rival Sultans, very strained
relations existed.
Then there was another claimant to the Sultanship in the person of the
Raja Muda Jusuf, who lived still further up country, and while his claims
were undoubtedly the best, his personal unpopularity was so great that
the people would not accept him as Sultan.
The success of the Residential idea (for no one had attempted to
formulate any scheme or system) depended on the existence of mutual
confidence and friendship between Sultan and Resident. That was,
unfortunately, wanting, and, as after many months of patient effort on
the part of Mr. Birch the desired result seemed further away than ever,
the governor of the neighbouring colony (then Major-General Sir W.
Jervois, R.E.) determined to visit Perak and see what chance there was of
establishing administrative authority, collecting revenue, and otherwise
carrying out the provisions of the Pangkor Treaty.
As the result of that visit and of interviews between the Governor and
the Chiefs, a proposition was made to Sultan Abdullah that the government
of the State should be carried on in his name by British officers. He
hesitated for some days, but, finding that the Raja Muda and others had
at once and gladly accepted the suggestion, he determined to do the
same, fearing, no doubt, that otherwise he might be left out of the
administration altogether.
It was the Malay fasting-month, the _bûlan puâsa_, when these last events
occurred. It is not an auspicious time for conducting negotiations with
Malays, they do not even attempt to work for that month, they sleep
for most of the day and sit up most of the night, eating and talking,
discussing affairs and hatching plots. This, at least, is the case with
the upper classes, and it is they only who are concerned in political
movements; the common people do not fast as a rule, and leave the
plotting to the chiefs, whose business they think it is to scheme and to
direct, theirs to obey.