Before Nine We Anchored At This Place, Whose Wretchedness Makes A Great
Impression On Me, Because We Are To Deposit Mr. Hawley Here As Revenue
Collector.
I have seen him every day for a week; he is amiable and
courteous, as well as intelligent and energetic, and it is shocking to
leave him alone in a malarious swamp.
This dismal revenue station
consists of a few exceptionally poor-looking Malay houses on the river
bank, a few equally unprosperous-looking Chinese dwellings, a police
station of dilapidated thatch among the trees, close to it a cage in
which there is a half-human looking criminal lying on a mat, a new
house or big room, raised for Mr. Hawley, with the swamp all round it
and underneath it, and close to it some pestiferous ditches which have
been cut to drain it, but in which a putrid-looking brown ooze has
stagnated. There is a causeway about two hundred yards long on the
river bank, but no road anywhere. The river is broad, deep, swift and
muddy; on its opposite side is Perak, the finest State in the
peninsula, and the cluster of mat houses on the farther shore is under
the Perak Government.* Sampans are lying on the heated slime. Cocoa-nut
trees fringe the river bank for some distance, and there are some
large, spreading trees loaded with the largest and showiest crimson
blossoms I ever saw, throwing even the gaudy Poinciana regia into the
shade; but nothing can look very attractive here, with the swamp in
front and the jungle behind, where the rhinoceros is said to roam
undisturbed.
[*The Bernam district has recently been handed over to Perak, and is now
under Mr. Low's very capable administration.]
We landed in the police boat at a stilted jetty approached by a ladder
with few and slippery rungs. At the top there was a primitive gridiron
of loose nibong bars, and the river swirled so rapidly and dizzily
below that I was obliged ignominiously to hold on to a Chinaman in
order to reach the causeway safely. To add to the natural insecurity of
the foothold, some men were killing a goat at the top of the ladder,
and its blood made the whole gridiron slippery. The banks of the river
are shining slime giving off fetid exhalations under the burning sun;
there is a general smell of vegetable decomposition, and miasma fever
(one would suppose) is exhaling from every bubble of the teeming slime
and swamp.
In the veranda of Mr. Hawley's house a number of forlorn-looking
Rajahs are sitting, each with his forlorn-looking train of followers,
and in front of the police station a number of forlorn-looking Malays
are sitting motionless hour after hour. The Chinese have a row of shops
above the river bank, and even on this deadly-looking shore they
display some purpose and energy. Mrs. Daly and I are sitting in Mr.
Hawley's side veranda with the bubbling swamp below us. She reads a
dull novel, I watch the dead life, pen in hand, and think how I can
convey any impression of it to you. The Resident has gone snipe-
shooting to replenish our larder. A boat now and then crosses from the
Perak side, a sauntering Malay occasionally joins the squatting group,
a fishing hawk now and then swoops down upon a fish, a policeman
occasionally rouses up the wretch in the cage, and so the torrid hours
pass.
I take this up again as the dew falls, and the sea takes on the
coloring of a dying dolphin. The Resident returned with a good bag of
snipe, and with Rajah Odoot, a gentle, timid-looking man, and another
Rajah with an uncomfortable, puzzled face, took his place at a table, a
policeman with a brace of loaded revolvers standing behind him.
Policemen filed in; one or two cases were tried and dismissed, the
Malay witnesses trembling from head to foot, and then the wretch from
the cage was brought in looking hardly human, as, from under his
shaggy, unshaven hair and unplaited pigtail which hung over his chest,
he cast furtive, frightened glances at the array before him. He was
charged with being a waif. A Malay had picked him up at sea in a boat,
of which he could give no account, neither of himself. So he is
supposed to have been implicated in the murder of Mr. Lloyd, and we are
bringing him, heavily ironed, and his boat up to Pinang. I wonder how
many of the feelings which we call human exist in the lowest order of
Orientals! It is certain that many of them only regard kindness as a
confession of weakness. The Chinese seem specially inscrutable; no one
seems really to understand them. Even the Canton missionaries said that
they knew nearly nothing of them and their feelings. This wretched
criminal, with his possible association with a brutal murder, is a most
piteous object on deck, and comes between me and the enjoyment of this
entrancing evening.
We reembarked late in the afternoon, and with the flood-tide in our
favor have left Selangor behind. It has impressed me unfavorably as
compared with Sungei Ujong. Of Kwalor Lumpor I cannot give any opinion,
but I have seen no signs of progress or life anywhere else. The people
of the State are harassed by vexatious imposts which yield very little,
cost a great deal to collect, repress industry, and drive away
population. Among such are taxes on individuals moving about the
country up or down the rivers, cutting wood or in boats, oppressively
heavy export duties on certain kinds of produce, and ad valorem duties
on all articles of import and export not otherwise specially taxed. The
costs of litigation are enormous, and the legal expenses to litigants
are as great as in settlements where with the same money every
advantage can be obtained. The stamps on all legal documents are also
oppressive.
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