I Think That Altogether I Walked About Eight
Miles, And I Was Not Knocked Up; This Says A Great Deal For The Climate
Of Perak.
The Malay who came with me told the people here that it was
"a wicked elephant," but I have since been told "that it was very sick
and tired to death," which I hope is the true version of its most
obnoxious conduct.
I have said nothing about the magnificence of the scenery for a part of
the way, where the road goes through a grand mountain pass, where all
the vegetable glories of the tropics seem assembled, and one gets a new
idea of what scenery can be; while beneath superb tree-ferns and
untattered bananas, and palms, and bright-flowered lianas, and graceful
trailers, and vermilion-colored orchids, and under sun-birds and
humming birds and the most splendid butterflies I ever saw, a torrent,
as clear as crystal, dashes over the rocks, and adds the music of
tumbling water to the enchantment of a scene whose loveliness no words
can give any idea of. The pass of Bukit Berapit, seen in solitude on a
glorious morning, is almost worth a journey round the world.
Another wonder of the route is Gunong Pondok, a huge butte or isolated
mass of red and white limestone, much weather-stained and ore-stained
with very brilliant colors, full of caverns, many of which are quite
inaccessible, their entrances fringed with immense stalactites. Some of
the accessible caves have roofs seventy feet in height. Gunong Pondok
is shaped like the Bass Rock, and is about twelve hundred feet in
height. Its irregular top is forest-crowned, but its nearly
perpendicular walls of white or red rock afford scarcely roothold for
trees, and it rises in comparatively barren solitude among the
forest-covered mountains of the interior.
At the end of ten hours' traveling, as I was tramping along alone, I
began to meet Malays, then I met nine elephants in groups of three,
with men, women, and children on their backs, apparently taking "an
airing," the beasts looking grand, as their fronts always do. But that
part of the road passes through a lonely jungle region, tiger,
elephant, and rhinoceros haunted, and only broken here and there by
some rude Malay cultivation of bananas or sugar-cane. When the sun was
low I looked down upon a broad and beautiful river, with hills and
mountains on its farther side, a village on the shores of a promontory,
and above that a grassy hill with a bungalow under cocoa-palms at its
top, which I knew must be the Residency, from the scarlet uniforms at
the door. There was a small bridge over the Kangsa, then a guard-room
and some official residences on stilts, and at the top of a steep slope
the bungalow, which has a long flight of stairs under a latticed porch,
leading to a broad and comfortably furnished veranda used as the
Resident's office and sitting-room, the centre part, which has a bed-
room on each side of it and runs to the back of the house, serving for
the eating-place. It is as unpretending a dwelling as can be. It keeps
out the sun and rain, and gives all the comfort which is needed in this
climate, but nothing more. My journey of thirty-three miles from the
coast has brought me into the interior of the State, where the Kangsa
river joins the Perak, at a distance of a hundred and fifty miles from
its mouth, and I am alone in the wilds!
LETTER XX (CONTINUED)
Mystification - A Grotesque Dinner-Party - Mahmoud and Eblis - Fun and
Frolic - Mahmoud's Antics - A Perak Jungle - The Poetry of Tropical
Life - Village Life - The Officials of the Mosques - A Moslem Funeral - The
"Royal Elephant" - Swimming the Perak - The Village of Koto-lamah - A
"Pirate's Nest" - Rajah Dris
I fear that the involvement and confusion of dates in this letter will
be most puzzling. I was received by a magnificent Oriental butler, and
after I had had a delicious bath, dinner, or what Assam was pleased to
call breakfast, was "served." The word "served" was strictly
applicable, for linen, china, crystal, flowers, cooking, were all alike
exquisite. Assam, the Madrassee, is handsomer and statelier than Babu
at Malacca; a smart Malay lad helps him, and a Chinaman sits on the
steps and pulls the punkah. All things were harmonious, the glorious
cocoa-palms, the bright green slopes, the sunset gold on the lake-like
river, the ranges of forest-covered mountains etherealizing in the
purple light, the swarthy faces and scarlet uniforms of the Sikh guard,
and rich and luscious odors, floated in on balmy airs, glories of the
burning tropics, untellable and incommunicable!
My valise had not arrived, and I had been obliged to redress myself in
my mud-splashed tweed dress, therefore I was much annoyed to find the
table set for three, and I hung about unwillingly in the veranda, fully
expecting two Government clerks in faultless evening dress to appear,
and I was vexed to think that my dream of solitude was not to be
realized, when Assam more emphatically assured me that the meal was
"served," and I sat down, much mystified, at the well-appointed table,
when he led in a large ape, and the Malay servant brought in a small
one, and a Sikh brought in a large retriever and tied him to my chair!
This was all done with the most profound solemnity. The circle being
then complete, dinner proceeded with great stateliness. The apes had
their curry, chutney, pine-apple, eggs, and bananas on porcelain
plates, and so had I. The chief difference was that, whereas I waited
to be helped, the big ape was impolite enough occasionally to snatch
something from a dish as the butler passed round the table, and that
the small one before very long migrated from his chair to the table,
and, sitting by my plate, helped himself daintily from it.
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