Are not developed, and its resources seem very little known.
There has not been any disturbance in Selangor since 1874; and as
neither the Sultan, the Malays, nor the Chinese have ever raised
objections of any serious kind to the proposals of the British
advisers, the "far back" state of things is very singular.
Mr. Syers, the superintendent of military police, appears a thoroughly
efficient man, as sensible in his views of what would conduce to the
advancement of the State as he is conscientious and careful in all
matters of detail which concern his rather complicated position. He is
a student of the people and of the country, speaks Malay fluently, and
for a European seems to have a sympathetic understanding of the Malays,
is studying the Chinese and their language, as well as the flora,
fauna, and geology of the country, and is altogether unpretending. I
have formed a very high opinion of him and should rely implicitly on
anything which he told me as a fact. This is a great blessing, for
conflicting statements on every subject, and the difficulty of
estimating which one comes probably nearest the truth, are among the
great woes of traveling!
I. L. B.
LETTER XVII
The Dindings - The Tragedy on Pulu Pangkor - A Tropic Sunrise - Sir W.
Robinson's Departure - "A Touch of the Sun" - Kling Beauty - A Question
and Answer - The Bazaars of Georgetown - The Chinaman Goes Ahead - The
Products of Pinang - Pepper-Planting
HOTEL DE L'EUROPE, PINANG, February 9.
In the evening we reached the Dindings, a lovely group of small islands
ceded to England by the Pangkor Treaty, and just now in the height of
an unenviable notoriety. The sun was low and the great heat past, the
breeze had died away, and in the dewy stillness the largest of the
islands looked unspeakably lovely as it lay in the golden light between
us and the sun, forest-covered to its steep summit, its rocky
promontories running out into calm, deep, green water, and forming
almost land-locked bays, margined by shores of white coral sand backed
by dense groves of cocoa-palms whose curving shadows lay dark upon the
glassy sea. Here and there a Malay house in the shade indicated man and
his doings, but it was all silent.
On a high, steep point there is a small clearing on which stands a mat
bungalow with an attap roof, and below this there is a mat police
station, but it was all desolate, nothing stirred, and though we had
intended to spend the early hours of the night at the Dindings, we only
lay a short time in the deep shadow upon the clear green water,
watching scarlet fish playing in the coral forests, and the exquisite
beauty of the island with its dense foliage in dark relief against the
cool lemon sky.
