From Pinang
One Sees Its Broad Stretches Of Bright Green Sugar-Cane And The
Chimneys Of Its Sugar Factories, And It Grows Rice And Cocoa-Nuts, And
Is Actually More Populous Than Pinang Or Malacca, And Contains As Many
Malays As Sungei Ujong, Selangor And Pinang Together - Fifty-Eight
Thousand!
Mr. Maxwell had promised to bring the Kinta, a steam-
launch, across from Georgetown by 8 P.M., and it shows how very
pleasant the evening was, that though I was very tired, eight, nine,
ten, and eleven came, and the conversation never flagged.
Soon after eleven the Kinta appeared, a black shadow on a silver sea,
roaring for a boat, but the surf was so heavy that it was some time
before the police boat was got off; and then Mr. Maxwell, whose cheery,
energetic voice precedes him, and Mr. Walker landed, bullying
everybody, as people often do when they know that they are the
delinquents! It was lovely in the white moonlight with the curving
shadows of palms on the dewy grass, the grace of the drooping
casuarinas, the shining water, and the long drift of surf. It was hard
to get off, and the surf broke into the boat; but when we were once
through it, the sea was like oil, the oars dripped flame, and, seen
from the water, the long line of surf broke on the shore not in snow,
but in a long drift of greenish fire.
The Kinta is a steam-launch of the Perak Government. Her boilers, to
use an expressive Japanese phrase, are "very sick," and she is not
nearly so fine as the Abdulsamat, but a quiet, peaceful boat, without
any pretensions; and really any "old tub" is safe on the Straits of
Malacca except in a "Sumatran." I stayed on deck for some time enjoying
the exquisite loveliness of the night, and the vivacity of two of my
companions, Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant Resident here, a really able and
most energetic man, very argumentative, bright, and pleasant; and
Captain Walker, A.D.C. to Sir W. Robinson, on his way from the
ceaseless gayeties of Government House at Singapore to take command of
the Sikh military police in the solitary jungles of Perak. The third,
Mr. Innes, Superintendent of Lower Perak, whose wife so nearly lost her
life in the horrible affair at Pulo Pangkor, was in dejected spirits,
as if the swamps of Durion Sabatang had been too much for him.
The little cabin below was frightfully hot, and I shared it not only
with two nice Malay boys, sons of the exiled Abdullah, the late Sultan,
who are being educated at Malacca, but with a number of large and
rampant rats. Finding the heat and rats unbearable, I went on deck in
the rosy dawn, just as we were entering the Larut river, a muddy
stream, flowing swiftly between dense jungles and mangrove swamps, and
shores of shining slime, on which at low water the alligators bask in
the sun - one of the many rivers of the Peninsula which do not widen at
their mouths.
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