This Place Was The Focus Of The
Disturbances In 1873, And The Chinese Seem Still To Need To Be Held In
Check, For They Are Not Allowed To Go Out At Night Without Passes And
Lanterns.
They are miners, except those who keep the innumerable shops
which supply the miners, and some of them are rich.
Taipeng is
tolerably empty during the day, but at dusk, when the miners return,
the streets and gambling dens are crowded, and the usual Babel of
Chinese tongues begins. There are scarcely any Malays in the town.
Mr. Maxwell walks and rides about everywhere unattended and without
precautions, but Sikh sentries guard this house by night and day. They
wear large blue turbans, scarlet coats and white trousers. There are
four hundred and fifty of them, recruited in India from among the Sikhs
and Pathans, and many of them have seen service under our flag. They
are, to all intents and purposes, soldiers, drilled and disciplined as
such, though called "Armed Police," and are commanded by Major
Swinburne of the 80th Regiment. There is a half battery of mountain
train rifled guns, and many of these men are drilled as gunners. Their
joy would be in shooting and looting, but they have not any scent for
crime. They are splendid-looking men, with long moustaches and
whiskers, but they plait the long ends of the latter and tuck them up
under their turbans. They have good-natured faces generally, and are
sober, docile and peaceable, but Major Swinburne says that they indulge
in violent wordy warfare on "theological subjects." They are devoted to
the accumulation of money, and very many of them being betrothed to
little girls in India, save nearly all their pay in order to buy land
and settle there. When off duty they wear turbans and robes nearly as
white as snow, and look both classical and colossal. They get on
admirably with the Malays, but look down on the Chinese, who are much
afraid of them. One sees a single Sikh driving four or five Chinamen in
front of him, having knotted their pigtails together for reins. I have
been awoke each night by the clank which attends the change of guard,
and as the moonlight flashes on the bayonets, I realize that I am in
Perak.
The air is so bracing here and the nights so cool, that I have been out
by seven each morning, and have been into Taipeng in the evening. This
morning I went to see the hospital, mainly used by the Sikhs, who,
though very docile patients, are most troublesome in other ways, owing
to religious prejudices, which render it nearly impossible to cook for
them. There was one wretched Chinaman there, horribly mangled. He was
stealing a boat on one of the many creeks, when an alligator got hold
of him, and tore both legs, one arm, and his back in such a way that it
is wonderful that he lives. The apothecary is a young Madrassee. One or
two cases of that terrible disease known in Japan as Kakke, and
elsewhere as Beri-Beri, have just appeared.* We walked also to a clear
mountain torrent which comes thundering down among great boulders and
dense tropical vegetation at the foot of the mountains, as clear and
cold as if it were a Highland stream dashing through the purple
heather.
[*Since my visit there have been three fatal outbreaks of this epidemic,
three thousand deaths having occurred among the neighboring miners and
coolies. So firmly did the disease appear to have established itself,
that a large permanent hospital was erected by the joint efforts of the
chief mining adventurers and the Government, but it has now been taken
over altogether by the Government, and is supported by an annual tax of
a dollar, levied upon every adult Chinaman. Extensive hospital
accommodation and sufficient medical attendance have also been provided
in other stricken localities. In the jail, where the disease was very
fatal, it has nearly died out, in consequence, it is believed, of
supplying the prisoners with a larger quantity of nitrogenous food. It
has been proposed to compel the employers of mining coolies to do the
same thing, for the ravages of the disease are actually affecting the
prosperity of Larut.]
There are "trumpeter beetles" here, with bright green bodies and
membranous-looking transparent wings, four inches across, which make
noise enough for a creature the size of a horse. Two were in the house
tonight, and you could scarcely hear anyone speak. But there is a
blessed respite from mosquitoes.
Major Swinburne and Captain Walker have dined here, and we had a simple
dinner of roast mutton, the first that I have tasted for ten months. It
is a great treat. One becomes tired of made dishes, consisting chiefly
of impoverished fowls, disguised in about twenty different ways.
When I left Malacca, Captain Shaw said: "When you see Paul Swinburne
you'll see a man you'll not see twice in a lifetime," so yesterday,
when a tall, slender, aristocratic-looking man, who scarcely looks
severable from the door-steps of a Pall Mall club, strode down the room
and addressed me abruptly with the words: "The sooner you go away again
the better; there's nothing to see, nothing to do, and nothing to
learn," I was naturally much interested. He has a dash of acquired
eccentricity of tone and manner, is very proud, but, unlike some proud
people, appreciates the co-humanity of his inferiors, is a brilliant
talker, dashing over art, literature, politics, society, tells stories
brilliantly, never flags, is totally regardless of "the equities of
conversation," and is much beloved by the Sikhs, to whom he is just.
At Pinang I heard an anecdote of him which is quite credible. The
regent (it is said) wanted him to use the Sikhs to catch a female
runaway slave, and on his refusing, the Rajah made use of a very
opprobrious epithet, on which he drew himself up, saying:
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