Left I caught a
glimpse of him lounging at ease in a white shirt and red sarong, all
his gorgeousness having disappeared.
After we returned to the bungalow the Sultan sent me a gift. Eight
attendants dressed in pure white came into the room in single file, and
each bowing to the earth, sat down a brass salver, with its contents
covered with a pure white cloth. Again bowing, they uncovered them, and
displayed the fruitage of the tropics. There were young cocoa-nuts,
gold-colored bananas of the kind which the Sultan eats, papayas, and
clusters of a species of jambu, a pear-shaped fruit, beautiful to look
at, each fruit looking as if made of some transparent, polished white
wax with a pink flush on one side. The Rajah Moussa also arrived and
took coffee, and the verandas were filled with his followers. Every
Rajah goes about attended, and seems to be esteemed according to the
size of his following.
We left this remote and beautiful place at noon, and after a delightful
cruise of five hours down the Jugra, and among islands floating on a
waveless sea, we reached dreary, decayed Klang in the evening.
I. L. B.
LETTER XV
Tiger Mosquitoes - Insect Torments - A Hadji's Fate - Malay Custom - Oaths
and Lies - A False Alarm
THE RESIDENCY, KLANG, February 7.
