They Make Their Own Gunpowder,
And Use Cartridges Made Of Cane.
The Malays, like the Japanese, have a most rigid epistolary etiquette,
and set forms for letter writing.
Letters must consist of six parts,
and are so highly elaborate that the scribes who indite them are almost
looked upon as litterateurs. There is an etiquette of envelopes and
wafers, the number and color of which vary with the relative positions
of the correspondents, and any error in these details is regarded as an
insult. Etiquette in general is elaborate and rigid, and ignorant
breaches of it on the part of Europeans have occasionally cost them
their lives.
The systems of government in the Malay States vary in detail, but on
the whole may be regarded as absolute despotisms, modified by certain
rights, of which no rulers in a Mohammedan country can absolutely
deprive the ruled, and by the assertion of the individual rights of
chiefs. Sultans, rajahs, maharajahs, datus, etc., under ordinary
circumstances have been and still are in most of the unprotected States
unable to control the chiefs under them, who have independently levied
taxes and blackmail till the harassed cultivators came scarcely to care
to possess property which might at any time be seized. Forced labor for
a quarter of the laboring year was obligatory on all males, besides
military service when called upon.
Slavery and debt bondage exist in all the native States; except in
Selangor and Sungei Ujong, where it has recently been abolished, as it
is hoped it will be in Perak. The slaves of the reigning princes were
very easily acquired, for a prince had only to send a messenger bearing
a sword or kris to a house, and the parents were obliged to give up any
one of their children without delay or question. In debt slavery, which
prevails more or less among all classes, and has done a great deal to
degrade the women of the Peninsula, a man owing a trifling debt
incurred through extravagance, misfortune or gambling, can be seized by
his creditor; when he, his wife, and children, including those who may
afterwards be born, and probably their descendants, become slaves.
In most of the States the reigning prince has regular officers under
him, chief among whom are the Bandahara or treasurer, who is the first
minister, chief executive officer, and ruler over the peasantry, and
the Tumongong or chief magistrate. Usually the throne is hereditary,
but while the succession in some States is in the male line, in others
it is in the female, a sister's son being the heir; and there are
instances in which the chiefs have elected a sultan or rajah. The
_theory_ of government does not contain anything inherently vicious,
and is well adapted to Malay circumstances. Whatever is evil in
practice is rather contrary to the theory than in accordance with it.
The States undoubtedly have fallen, in many ways, into evil case; the
privileged few, consisting of rajahs and their numerous kindred and
children, oppressing the unprivileged many, living in idleness on what
is wrung from their toil. The Malay sovereigns in most cases have come
to be little more than the feudal heads of bodies of insubordinate
chiefs, while even the headmen of the villages take upon themselves to
levy taxes and administer a sort of justice. Nomadic cultivation,
dislike of systematic labor, and general insecurity as to the
boundaries and tenure of land, have further impoverished the common
people, while Islamism exercises its usual freezing and retarding
influence, producing the fatal isolation which to weak peoples is slow
decay.
When Sir A. Clarke was appointed Governor of the Straits Settlements in
1873 he went to the Curator of the Geographical Society's library in
quest of maps and information of any kind about the country to which he
was going, but was told by that courteous functionary that there was
absolutely no information of the slightest value in their archives.
Since then the protectorate which we have acquired over three of the
native States and the war in Perak have mended matters somewhat; but
Mr. Daly, on appearing in May last before the same Society with the map
which is the result of his partial survey, regrets that we have of half
of the Peninsula "only the position of the coast-line!" Of the States
washed by the China Sea scarcely anything is known, and the eastern and
central interior offer a wide field for the explorer.
The letters which follow those written from China and Saigon relate to
the British settlements in the Straits of Malacca, and to the native
States of Perak, Selangor, and Sungei Ujong, which, since 1874, have
passed. under British "protection." The preceding brief sketch is
necessarily a very imperfect one, as to most of my questions addressed
on the spot and since to the best informed people, the answer has been,
"No information." The only satisfaction that I have in these
preliminary pages is, that they place the reader in a better position
than I was in when I landed at Malacca. To a part of this beautiful but
little known region I propose to conduct my readers, venturing to hope
for their patient interest in my journeyings over the bright waters of
the Malacca Straits and in the jungles of the Golden Chersonese.
I. L. B.
LETTER I
The Steamer Volga - Days of Darkness - First View of Hong Kong - Hong Kong
on Fire - Apathy of the Houseless - The Fire Breaks Out Again - An Eclipse
of Gayety
S.S. "VOLGA," CHINA SEA, Christmas Eve, 1878.
The snowy dome of Fujisan, reddening in the sunrise, rose above the
violet woodlands of Mississippi Bay as we steamed out of Yokohama
harbor on the 19th, and three days later I saw the last of Japan - a
rugged coast, lashed by a wintry sea.
THE PALACE, VICTORIA, HONG KONG, December 27.
Of the voyage to Hong Kong little need be said. The Volga is a
miserable steamer, with no place to sit in, and nothing to sit on but
the benches by the dinner-table in the dismal saloon.
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