If They Were Swept Away To-Morrow Not A
Trace Of Them Except Their Metal Work Would Be To Be Found.
Civilized
as they are, they don't leave any more impress on the country than a
Red Indian would.
They have not been destroyed by great wars, or great
pestilences, or the ravages of drink, nor can it be said that they
perish mysteriously, as some peoples have done, by contact with
Europeans; yet it is evident that the dwindling process has been going
on for several generations.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXI
A Malay Interior - Malay Bird-Scaring - Rice Culture - Picturesque
Dismalness - A Bad Spell - An Alarm - Possibilities of Peril - Patience and
Kindness - Masculine Clatter
KWALA KANGSA, February 20.
Yesterday afternoon I had an expedition which I liked very much, though
it ended a little awkwardly owing to a late start. Captain Walker was
going on a shooting excursion to a lotus lake at some distance, and
invited me to join him. So we started after tiffin with two Malays,
crossed the Perak in a "dug-out," and walked for a mile over a sandy,
grassy shore, which there lies between the bright water and the forest,
then turned into the jungle, and waded through a stream which was up to
my knees as we went, and up to my waist as we returned. Then a
tremendous shower came on, and we were asked to climb into a large
Malay house, of which the floor was a perilously open gridiron. At
least three families were in it, and there were some very big men, but
the women hid themselves behind a screen of matting. It looked forlorn.
A young baboon was chained to the floor, and walked up and down
restlessly like a wild beast in a menagerie; there were many birds in
cages, and under the house was much rubbish, among which numerous fowls
were picking. There was much fishing-tackle on the walls, both men and
women being excessively fond of what I suppose may be called angling.
They brought us young cocoa-nuts, and the milk, drank as it always
ought to be, through one of the holes in the nut, was absolutely
delicious.
Where the Malays are not sophisticated enough to have glass or china,
they use dried gourds for drinking-vessels. The cocoa-nut is an
invaluable product to them. Besides furnishing them with an
incomparable drink, it is the basis of the curries on which they live
so much, and its meat and milk enter into the composition of their
sweet dishes. I went to see the women behind their screen, and found
one of them engaged in making a dish which looked like something which
we used to call syllabub. It was composed of remarkably unbleached
sago, which they make from the sago-palm, boiled down with sugar to
nearly a jelly. It was on an earthenware plate, and the woman who was
preparing it mixed sugar with cocoa-nut milk, and whipping it with a
bunch of twigs to a slight froth, poured it over the jelly.
When the rain ceased we got through the timber belt into a forlorn
swamp of wet padi, where the water was a foot deep, and in some places
so unintelligibly hot that it was unpleasant to put one's feet into it.
It was truly a dismal swamp, and looked as if the padi were coming up
by accident among the reeds and weeds. Indeed, I should have thought
that it was a rice fallow, but for a number of grotesque scarecrows,
some mere bundles of tatters, but others wearing the aspect of big
birds, big dolls, or cats. I could not think how it was that these
things made spasmodic jerking movement, as there was not a breath of
air, and they were all soaked by the shower, till I saw that they were
attached by long strings to a little grass hut raised on poles, in
which a girl or boy sat "bird-scaring." The sparrows rob the
rice-fields, and so do the beautiful padi-birds, of which we saw great
numbers.
The Malays are certainly not industrious; they have no need to be so,
and their cultivation is rude. They plow the rice-land with a plow
consisting of a pole eight feet long, with a fork protruding from one
end to act as a coulter, and a bar of wood inserted over this at an
oblique angle forms a guiding handle. This plow is drawn by the great
water buffalo. After plowing, the clods are broken by dragging a heavy
beam over them, and are harrowed by means of a beam set with iron
spikes The women do the sowing and planting. The harvest succeeds the
planting in four months. The rice ears are cut short off, sometimes by
a small sickle, and sometimes by an instrument which produces the
effect of shears. Threshing consists in beating the ears with thick
sticks to loosen the husks, after which the padi is carried in baskets
to platforms ten feet above the ground, and is allowed to fall on mats,
when the chaff is driven away by the wind. It is husked by a pestle,
and it requires some skill to avoid crushing the grain. All these
operations are performed by women.
The Perak Malays don't like working for other people, but some of them
cultivate sugar-cane and maize for sale. Even for clearing jungle-land
foreign labor has to be resorted to.
Ah, that swamp is a doleful region! One cannot tell where it ends and
where the jungle begins, and dark, heavy, ominous-looking clouds
generally concealed the forest-covered hills which are not far off. I
almost felt the redundancy of vegetation to be oppressive, and the
redundancy of insect and reptile life certainly was so; swarms of
living creatures leaped in and out of the water, bigger ones hidden
from view splashed heavily, and a few blackish, slug-like looking
reptiles, which drew blood, and hung on for an hour or two, attached
themselves to my ankles.
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