Soon After We Sat Down To Drink Fresh Cocoa-Nut Milk,
The Great Beverage Of The Country, A Malay Bounded Up The Ladder And
Passed Through Us, With The Most Rapid And Feline Movements I Have Ever
Seen In A Man.
His large prominent eyes were fixed, tiger-like, on a
rifle which hung on the wall, at which he darted, clutched it, and,
with a feline leap, sprang through us again.
I have heard much of amok
running lately, and have even seen the two-pronged fork which was used
for pinning a desperate amok runner to the wall, so that for a second I
thought that this Malay was "running amuck;" but he ran down toward Mr.
Hayward, our escort, and I ran after him, just in time to see a large
alligator plunge from the bank into the water. Mr. Hayward took a
steady aim at the remaining one, and hit him, when he sprang partly up
as if badly wounded, and then plunged into the river after his
companion, staining the muddy water with his blood for some distance.
Police Station, Permatang Pasir, Sungei Ujong, 5 P.M. - We are now in a
native State, in the Territory of the friendly Datu Klana, Syed
Abdulrahman, and the policemen wear on their caps not an imperial
crown, but a crescent, with a star between its horns.
This is a far more adventurous expedition than we expected. Things are
not going altogether as straight as could be desired, considering that
we have the Governor's daughters with us, who, besides being very
precious, are utterly unseasoned and inexperienced travelers, quite
unfit for "roughing it." For one thing, it turns out to be an absolute
necessity for us to be out all night, which I am very sorry for, as one
of the girls is suffering from the effects of exposure to the intense
heat of the sun.
We left Sempang at two, the Misses Shaw reeling rather than walking to
the launch. I cannot imagine what the mercury was in the sun, but the
copper sheathing of the gunwale was too hot to be touched. Above
Sempang the river narrows and shoals rapidly, and we had to crawl,
taking soundings incessantly, and occasionally dragging heavily over
mud banks. We saw a large alligator sleeping in the sun on the mud,
with a mouth, I should think, a third of the length of his body; and as
he did not wake as we panted past him, a rifle was loaded and we backed
up close to him; but Babu, who had the weapon, and had looked quite
swaggering and belligerent so long as it was unloaded, was too
frightened to fire; the saurian awoke, and his hideous form and
corrugated hide plunged into the water, so close under the stern as to
splash us. After this, alligators were so common, singly or in groups,
or in families, that they ceased to be exciting. It is difficult for
anything to produce continuous excitement under this fierce sun; and
conversation, which had been flagging before noon, ceased altogether.
It was awfully hot in the launch, between fire and boiler-heat and
solar fury. I tried to keep cool by thinking of Mull, and powdery snow
and frosty stars, but it would not do. It was a solemn afternoon, as
the white, unwinking sun looked down upon our silent party, on the
narrow turbid river, silent too, except for the occasional plunge of an
alligator or other water monster - on mangrove swamps and nipah palms
dense along the river side, on the blue gleam of countless kingfishers,
on slimy creeks arched over to within a few feet of their surface by
grand trees with festoon of lianas, on an infinite variety of foliage,
on an abundance of slender-shafted palms, on great fruits brilliantly
colored, on wonderful flowers on the trees, on the hoya carnosa and
other waxen-leaved trailers matting the forest together and hanging
down in great festoons, the fiery tropic sunblaze stimulating all this
over-production into perennial activity, and vivifying the very mud
itself.
Occasionally we passed a canoe with a "savage" crouching in it fishing,
but saw no other trace of man, till an hour ago we came upon large
cocoa groves, a considerable clearing in the jungle, and a very large
Malayan-Chinese village with mosques, one on either side of the river,
houses built on platforms over the water, large and small native boats
covered and thatched with attap, roofed platforms on stilts answering
the purpose of piers, bathing-houses on stilts carefully secluded, all
forming the (relatively) important village of Permatang Pasir.
Up to this time we had expected to find perfectly smooth sailing, as a
runner was sent from Malacca to the Resident yesterday. We supposed
that we should be carried in chairs six miles through the jungle to a
point where a gharrie could meet us, and that we should reach the
Residency by nine tonight at the latest. On arriving at Sempang, Mr.
Hayward had sent a canoe to this place with instructions to send
another runner to the Resident; but
"The best laid schemes of men and mice gang aft aglee."
The messenger seemed to have served no other purpose than to assemble
the whole male population of Permatang Pasir on the shore - a
sombre-faced throng, with an aloofness of manner and expression far
from pleasing. The thatched piers were crowded with turbaned Mussulmen
in their bajus or short jackets, full white trousers, and red sarongs
or plaitless kilts - the boys dressed in silver fig-leaves and silver
bangles only. All looked at our unveiled faces silently, and, as I
thought, disapprovingly.
After being hauled up the pier with great difficulty, owing to the
lowness of the water, we were met by two of the Datu Klana's policemen,
who threw cold water on the idea of our getting on at all unless
Captain Murray sent for us. These men escorted us to this police
station - a long walk through a lane of much decorated shops,
exclusively Chinese, succeeded by a lane of detached Malay houses, each
standing in its own fenced and neatly sanded compound under the shade
of cocoa-palms and bananas.
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