We Had Been Towing A Revenue Cutter With Stores For A New Lighthouse,
And Cast Her Adrift At The Point Where We Anchored, And The Resident
And Mr. Daly Went Ashore With Thirteen Policemen, And I Had A Most
Interesting And Instructive Conversation With Mr. Syers.
Afterward we
steamed along the low wooded coast, and then up the Langat river till
we came to Bukit Jugra, an isolated hill covered with jungle.
The
landing is up a great face of smooth rock, near the top of which is a
pretty police station, and higher still, nearly concealed by bananas
and cocoa-palms, is the large bungalow of the revenue officer and
police magistrate of Langat. We saw Mr. Ferney, the magistrate, landed
the police guard, and then steamed up here for a council.
Mr. Syers went ashore, and returned with the Sultan's heir, the Rajah
Moussa, a very peculiar-looking Malay, a rigid Mohammedan, who is
known, the Resident says, to have said that when he becomes Sultan he
"will drive the white men into the sea." He works hard, as an example
to his people, and when working dresses like a coolie. He sets his face
against cock-fighting and other Malay sports, is a reformer, and a
_dour_, strong-willed man, and his accession seems to be rather dreaded
by the Resident, as it is supposed that he will be something more than
a mere figure-head prince. He is a Hadji, and was dressed in a turban
made of many yards of priceless silk muslin, embroidered in silk, a
white baju, and a long white sarong, and full white trousers - a
beautiful dress for an Oriental. He shook hands with me. I wish that
these people would not adopt our salutations, their own are so much
more appropriate to their character.
The yacht is now lying at anchor in a deep coffee-colored stream, near
a picturesque Malay village on stilts, surrounded by very extensive
groves of palms. Several rivers intersect each other in this
neighborhood, flowing through dense jungles and mangrove swamps. The
sun is still high. The four white men and the Rajah Moussa have gone
ashore snipe shooting, the Malays on board are sleeping, and I am
enjoying a delicious solitude.
February 4, 4 P.M. - We are steaming over the incandescent sapphire sea,
among the mangrove-bordered islands which fringe the Selangor coast,
under a blazing sun, with the mercury 88 degrees in the shade, but the
heat, though fierce, is not oppressive, and I have had a delightful
day. The men returned when they could no longer see to shoot snipes,
with a well filled bag, and after sunset we dropped down to Bukit Jugra
or Langat. Most of the river was as black as night with the heavy
shadows of the forest, but along the middle there was a lane of
lemon-colored water, the exquisite reflection of a lemon-colored sky.
The Resident and Mr. Daly went down to the coast in the yacht to avoid
the mosquitoes of the interior, but I with Omar, one of the "body
guard," half Malay half Kling, as my attendant, and Mr. Syers, landed,
to remain at the magistrate's bungalow. It was a lovely walk up the
hill through the palms and bananas, and the bayonets of our escort
gleamed in the intense moonlight, not with anything alarming about them
either, for an escort is only necessary because the place is so
infested by tigers. The bungalow is large but rambling, and my room was
one built out at the end, with six windows with solid shutters, of
which Mr. Ferney closed all but two, and half closed those, because of
a tiger which is infesting the immediate neighborhood of the house, and
whose growling, they say, is most annoying. He killed a heifer
belonging to the Sultan two nights ago, and last night the sentry got a
shot at him from the veranda outside my room as he was engaged in most
undignified depredations upon the hen house.
There was a grand excitement yesterday morning. A tigress was snared in
a pitfall and was shot. Her corpse was brought to the bungalow warm and
limp. She measured eight feet two inches from her nose to her tail, and
her tail was two feet six inches long. She had whelps, and they must be
starving in the jungle tonight. Her beautiful skin is hanging up. All
the neighborhood, Chinese and Malay, turned out. Some danced; and the
Sultan beat gongs. Everybody seized upon a bit of the beast. The Sultan
claimed the liver, which, when dried and powdered, is worth twice its
weight in gold, as a medicine. The blood was taken, and I saw the
Chinamen drying it in the sun on small slabs; it is an invaluable
tonic! The eyes, which were of immense size, were eagerly scrambled
for, that the hard parts in the centre, which are valuable charms,
might be set in gold as rings. It was sad to see the terrible "glaring
eyeballs" of the jungle so dim and stiff. The bones were taken to be
boiled down to a jelly, which, when some mysterious drug has been
added, is a grand tonic. The gall is most precious, and the flesh was
all taken, but for what purpose I don't know. A steak of it was stewed,
and I tasted it, and found it in flavor much like the meat of an
ancient and overworked draught ox, but Mr. Ferney thought it like good
veal. At dinner the whole talk was of the wild beasts of the jungle;
and, as we were all but among them, it was very fascinating. I wanted
to go out by moonlight, but Mr. Ferney said that it was not safe,
because of tigers, and even the Malays there don't go out after
nightfall.
Mr. Ferney has given me a stick with a snake-mark on it, which was
given to him as a thing of great value.
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