The Performances Were Accompanied By Much Drumming, And By
The Beating Of Tom-Toms, An Essentially Infernal Noise, Which I Cannot
Help Associating With The Orgies Of Devil-Worship.
The "Capitan China,"
in a beautiful costume, sat with us in the veranda to see the
performance.
I have written a great deal about the Chinese and very little about the
Malays, the nominal possessors of the country, but the Chinese may be
said to be everywhere, and the Malays nowhere. You have to look for
them if you want to see them. Besides, the Chinese are as ten to two of
the whole population. Still the laws are administered in the name of
the Datu Klana, the Malay ruler. The land owned by Malays is being
measured, and printed title-deeds are being given, a payment of 2s. an
acre per annum being levied instead of any taxes on produce. Export
duties are levied on certain articles, but the navigation of the rivers
is free. Debt slavery, one curse of the Malay States, has been
abolished by the energy of Captain Murray with the cordial co-operation
of the Datu Klana, and now the whole population have the status and
rights of free men. It is a great pity that this Prince is in Malacca,
for he is said to be a very enlightened ruler. The photograph which I
inclose (from which the engraving is taken) is of the marriage of his
daughter, a very splendid affair. The buffalo in front was a marriage
present from the Straits Government, and its covering was of cloth of
gold thick with pearls and precious stones.
We visited yesterday a Malay kampong called Mambu, in order to pay an
unceremonious visit to the Datu Bandar, the Rajah second in rank to the
reigning prince. His house, with three others, a godown on very high
stilts, and a mound of graves whitened by the petals of the Frangipani,
with a great many cocoa-nut and other trees, was surrounded, as Malay
dwellings often are, by a high fence, within which was another
inclosing a neat, sanded level, under cocoa-palms, on which his
"private residence" and those of his wives stand. His secretary, a
nice-looking lad in red turban, baju, and sarong, came out to meet us,
followed by the Datu Bandar, a pleasant, able-looking man, with a
cordial manner, who shook hands and welcomed us. No notice had been
given of our visit, and the Rajah, who is reclaiming and bringing into
good cultivation much of his land, and who sets the example of working
with his own hands, was in a checked shirt, and a common, checked, red
sarong. Vulgarity is surely a disease of the West alone, though, as in
Japan, one sees that it can be contagious, and this Oriental, far from
apologizing for his dishabille, led us up the steep and difficult
ladder by which his house is entered with as much courteous ease as if
he had been in his splendors.
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