This
Board And The Low Roof Which Covers The Whole Produce The Complication
In Getting In And Out.
The bottom of the cart is filled up with grass
and leaves, and you put your feet on the board in front, and the little
rats of fiery Sumatra ponies, which will run till they drop, jolt you
along at great speed.
Klings, untroubled by much clothing, own and
drive these vehicles, which are increasing rapidly. The traffic on the
road of heavy buffalo carts, loaded with tin, cuts it up so badly that
without care one might often be thrown upon the pony's back at the
river end of it.
Near the port we met three elephants, the centre one of great size,
rolling along, one of them with a mahout seated behind his great
flapping ears. These are part of the regalia of the deposed Sultan, and
were sent down from the interior for me and my baggage. The smallest of
them would have carried me and my "Gladstone bag" and canvas roll. The
first sight of "elephants at home" is impressive, but they are
fearfully ugly, and their rolling gait does not promise well for the
ease of my future journey.
We passed through a swampy, but busy-looking Chinese village, masculine
almost solely, where Chinamen were building gharries and selling all
such things as Chinese coolies buy, just the same there as everywhere,
and at home there as everywhere; yellow, lean, smooth-shaven, keen,
industrious, self-reliant, sober, mercenary, reliable, mysterious,
opium-smoking, gambling, hugging clan ties, forming no others, and
managing their own matters even to the post and money-order offices,
through which they are constantly sending money to the interior of
China.
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