The
Mercury Has Been Down At 68 Degrees For Two Nights, And Blankets Have
Been A Comfort!
Shortly after finishing my last letter I left Taipeng with Mr. Maxwell,
calling on our way to the coast
At Permatang, to inquire if there were
any scent of the murderers of the revenue officer, but there was none.
The inspector said that he had seen many murdered bodies, but never one
so frightfully mutilated. These Chinese "gang-murders" are nearly
always committed for gain, and the Chinese delight in cruel hackings
and purposeless mutilations. The Malay assassinations are nearly all
affairs of jealousy - a single stab and no more.
The last part of the drive on a road causewayed through the endless
mangrove swamp impresses the imagination strongly by its dolefulness.
Here are hundreds of square miles all along the coast nothing but swamp
and slime, loaded with rank and useless vegetation, which has not even
beauty to justify its existence, teeming with alligators, serpents, and
other vengeful creatures. There is a mournfulness in seeing the pointed
fruit of the mangrove drop down through the still air into the slime
beneath, with the rootlet already formed of that which never fails to
become a tree.
A Sikh guard of honor of fifty men in scarlet uniforms lined the way to
the boat as a farewell to Major Swinburne, whose feet they had embraced
and kissed with every Oriental demonstration of woe two hours before.
We asked him what his farewells were, and he says that he said, "You
are a lot of unmitigated scoundrels; half of you deserve hanging; but
keep out of scrapes if you can till I come back, that I may have the
pleasure of hanging you myself." He really likes them though, and
called after Captain Walker, who is to act as his substitute, "Now, old
man, don't knock those fellows about!" The chief dread of the "fellows"
is that they will be at the mercy of an interpreter under the new
regime.
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