I Left Mr. Justice Wood's Yesterday, And His Servant Dispatched Me From
The Jetty In A Large Boat With An Attap Awning And Six Kling Rowers,
Whose Oars Worked In Nooses Of Rope.
The narrow Strait was very calm,
and the hot, fiery light of the tropic evening resting upon it, made it
look like oil rather than water.
In half an hour I landed on the other
side in the prosperous Province Wellesley, under a row of magnificent
casuarina trees, with gray, feathery foliage drooping over a beach of
corals and, behind which are the solemn glades of cocoa-nut groves. On
the little jetty a Sikh policeman waited for me; and presently Mrs.
Isemonger, wife of the police magistrate of the Province, met me on the
bright, green lawn studded with clumps of alamanda, which surrounds
their lovely, palm-shaded bungalow.
Though the shadows were falling, Mr. Isemonger took me to see something
of the back country in a trap with a fiery Sumatra pony. There are
miles of cocoa-nut plantations belonging to Chinamen all along the
coast, with the trees in straight lines forming long, broad avenues,
which have a certain gloomy grandeur about them. Then come sugarcane
and padi, and then palm plantations again.
The cocoa-nut palm grows best near salt water, no matter how loose and
sandy the soil is, and in these congenial circumstances needs neither
manure nor care of any kind. It bends lovingly toward the sea, and
drops its ripe fruit into it. But if it is planted more than two
hundred yards from the beach, it needs either rich or well-manured
soil, or the proximity of human habitations. It begins to bear fruit
between its fourth and tenth years, according to soil, and a
well-placed, generous tree bears from one hundred and forty to one
hundred and fifty nuts a year. They are of wonderfully slow growth. It
is three months from the time the blossom appears before the fruit
sets, then it takes six months to grow, and three months more to ripen,
and after that will hang two months on the tree before it
falls - fourteen months from the first appearance of the flower!
It is certainly not beautiful as grown in Province Wellesley, and I am
becoming faithless to my allegiance to it in this region of areca and
other more graceful palms.
In returning we saw many Malay kampongs under the palms, each with a
fire lighted underneath it, and there were many other fires for the
water-buffaloes, with groups of these uncouth brutes gathered
invariably on the leeward side, glad to be smoked rather than bitten by
the mosquitoes. These huge, thin-skinned animals have a strange
antipathy to white people. They are petted and caressed by the Malays,
and even small boys can do anything with them, and can ride upon their
backs, but constantly when they see white people they raise their
muzzles, and if there be room charge them madly. A buffalo is
enormously strong, but he objects to the sun, and likes to bathe in
rivers, and plaster himself with mud, and his tastes are much humored
by his owners. A buffalo has often been known to vanquish a tiger when
both have had fair play. Most of the drive back was accomplished by
nearly incessant flashes of sheet lightning.
We had a most pleasant evening. Mrs. Isemonger, who is a sister of Mr.
Maxwell, my present host, is gentle, thoughtful, well-informed, and
studious, and instead of creating and living in an artificial English
atmosphere which is apt to make a residence in a foreign country a very
unproductive period, she has interested herself in the Malays, and has
not only acquired an excellent knowledge of Malayan, but is translating
a Malayan book.
I felt much humiliated by my ignorance of Province Wellesley, of which
in truth I had never heard until I reached Malacca. It is a mere strip,
however, only thirty-five miles long by about ten broad, but it is
highly cultivated, fertile, rich, prosperous, and populous. From Pinang
one sees its broad stretches of bright green sugar-cane and the
chimneys of its sugar factories, and it grows rice and cocoa-nuts, and
is actually more populous than Pinang or Malacca, and contains as many
Malays as Sungei Ujong, Selangor and Pinang together - fifty-eight
thousand! Mr. Maxwell had promised to bring the Kinta, a steam-
launch, across from Georgetown by 8 P.M., and it shows how very
pleasant the evening was, that though I was very tired, eight, nine,
ten, and eleven came, and the conversation never flagged.
Soon after eleven the Kinta appeared, a black shadow on a silver sea,
roaring for a boat, but the surf was so heavy that it was some time
before the police boat was got off; and then Mr. Maxwell, whose cheery,
energetic voice precedes him, and Mr. Walker landed, bullying
everybody, as people often do when they know that they are the
delinquents! It was lovely in the white moonlight with the curving
shadows of palms on the dewy grass, the grace of the drooping
casuarinas, the shining water, and the long drift of surf. It was hard
to get off, and the surf broke into the boat; but when we were once
through it, the sea was like oil, the oars dripped flame, and, seen
from the water, the long line of surf broke on the shore not in snow,
but in a long drift of greenish fire.
The Kinta is a steam-launch of the Perak Government. Her boilers, to
use an expressive Japanese phrase, are "very sick," and she is not
nearly so fine as the Abdulsamat, but a quiet, peaceful boat, without
any pretensions; and really any "old tub" is safe on the Straits of
Malacca except in a "Sumatran." I stayed on deck for some time enjoying
the exquisite loveliness of the night, and the vivacity of two of my
companions, Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant Resident here, a really able and
most energetic man, very argumentative, bright, and pleasant; and
Captain Walker, A.D.C. to Sir W. Robinson, on his way from the
ceaseless gayeties of Government House at Singapore to take command of
the Sikh military police in the solitary jungles of Perak.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 84 of 118
Words from 85094 to 86151
of 120530
