It Is Not An Imposing
Constellation, But It Is On A Part Of The Sky Which Is Not Crowded With
Stars, And It Always Lies Aslant And Obvious.
It has become to me as
much a friend as is the Plough of the northern regions.
At daybreak the next morning we were steaming up the Klang river, whose
low shores are entirely mangrove swamps, and when the sun was high and
hot we anchored in front of the village of Klang, where a large fort on
an eminence, with grass embankments in which guns are mounted, is the
first prominent object. Above this is a large wooden bungalow with an
attap roof, which is the British Residency. There was no air, and the
British ensign in front of the house hung limp on the flag-staff. Below
there is a village, with clusters of Chinese houses on the ground, and
Malay houses on stilts, standing singly, with one or two Government
offices bulking largely among them. A substantial flight of stone steps
leads from the river to a skeleton jetty with an attap roof, and near
it a number of attap-roofed boats were lying, loaded with slabs of tin
from the diggings in the interior, to be transhipped to Pinang. A
dainty steam-launch, the Abdulsamat, nominally the Sultan's yacht,
flying a large red and yellow flag, was also lying in the river.
Mr. Bloomfield Douglas, the Resident, a tall, vigorous, elderly man,
with white hair, a florid complexion, and a strong voice heard
everywhere in authoritative tones, met me with a four-oared boat, and a
buggy with a good Australian horse brought me here. From this house
there is a large but not a beautiful view of river windings, rolling
jungle, and blue hills. The lower part of the house, which is supported
on pillars, is mainly open, and is used for billiard-room, church,
lounging-room, afternoon tea-room, and audience-room; but I see nothing
of the friendly, easy-going to and fro of Chinese and Malays, which
was a pleasant feature of the Residency in Sungei Ujong. In fact, there
is here much of the appearance of an armed post amidst a hostile
population. In front of the Residency there is a six-pounder flanked by
two piles of shot. Behind it there is a guard-room, with racks of
rifles and bayonets for the Resident's body-guard of twelve men, and
quarters for the married soldiers, for soldiers they are, though they
are called policemen. A gong hangs in front of the porch on which to
sound the alarm, and a hundred men fully armed can turn out at five
minutes' notice.
The family consists of the Resident, his wife, a dignified and gracious
woman, with a sweet but plaintive expression of countenance, and an
afflicted daughter, on whom her mother attends with a loving, vigilant,
and ceaseless devotion of a most pathetic kind. The circle is completed
by a handsome black monkey tied to a post, and an ape which they call
an ouf, from the solitary monosyllable which it utters, but which I
believe to be the "agile gibbon," a creature so delicate that it has
never yet survived a voyage to England.
It is a beautiful creature. I could "put off" hours of time with it. It
walks on its hind legs with a curious human walk, hanging its long arms
down by its sides like B - - -. It will walk quietly by your side like
another person. It has nice dark eyes, with well-formed lids like ours,
a good nose, a human mouth with very nice white teeth, and a very
pleasant cheery look when it smiles, but when its face is at rest the
expression is sad and wistful. It spends a good deal of its time in
swinging itself most energetically. It has very pretty fingers and
finger-nails. It looks fearfully near of kin to us, and yet the gulf is
measureless. It can climb anywhere, and take long leaps. This morning
it went into a house in which a cluster of bananas is hanging, leaped
up to the roof, and in no time had peeled two, which it ate very
neatly. It has not even a rudimentary tail. When it sits with its arms
folded it looks like a gentlemanly person in a close-fitting fur suit.
The village of Klang is not interesting. It looks like a place which
has "seen better days," and does not impress one favorably as regards
the prosperity of the State. Above it the river passes through rich
alluvial deposits, well adapted for sugar, rice, and other products of
low-lying tropical lands; but though land can be purchased on a system
of deferred payments for two dollars an acre, these lands are still
covered with primeval jungle. Steam-launches and flattish-bottomed
native boats go up the river eighteen miles farther to a village called
Damarsara, from which a good country road has been made to the great
Chinese village and tin mines of Kwala Lumpor. The man-eating tigers,
which almost until now infested the old jungle track, have been driven
back, and plantations of tobacco, tapioca, and rice have been started
along the road. On a single Chinese plantation, near Kwala Lumpor,
there are over two thousand acres of tapioca under cultivation, and the
enterprising Chinaman who owns it has imported European steam machinery
for converting the tapioca roots into the marketable article. Whatever
enterprise I hear of in the interior is always in the hands of
Chinamen. Klang looks as if an incubus oppressed it, and possibly the
Chinese are glad to be as far as possible from the seat of what
impresses me as a fussy Government. At all events, Klang, from whatever
cause, has a blighted look; and deserted houses rapidly falling into
decay, overgrown roads, fields choked with weeds, and an absence of
life and traffic in the melancholy streets, have a depressing
influence.
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