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.
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