Produced by a Project Gutenberg volunteer working with digital material generously made available by the Internet Archive IN COURT AND KAMPONG IN COURT & KAMPONG BEING TALES & SKETCHES OF NATIVE LIFE IN THE MALAY PENINSULA BY HUGH CLIFFORD LONDON GRANT RICHARDS 48 LEICESTER SQUARE _First printed April 1897_ _Reprinted September 1903_ To My Wife My knowledge of all these things was won Ere to gladden my life You came, But the Land I knew, the Deeds saw done Will be never again the same, For You have come, like the rising Sun, To golden my World with your flame. H. C. PREFACE The nineteen tales and sketches, which are enclosed within the covers of this Book, relate to certain brown men and obscure things in a distant and very little known corner of the Earth. The Malay Peninsula--that slender tongue of land which projects into the tepid seas at the extreme south of the Asiatic Continent--is but little more than a name to most dwellers in Europe. But, even in the Peninsula itself, and to the majority of those white men whose whole lives have been passed in the Straits of Malacca, the East Coast and the remote interior, of which I chiefly write, are almost as completely unknown. It has been my endeavour, in writing this book, to give some idea of the lives lived in these lands by Europeans whose lot has led them away from the beaten track; by the aboriginal tribes of _SÃ¢kai_ and _Semang_; but, above all, by those Malays who, being yet untouched by contact with white men, are still in a state of original sin. My stories deal with natives of all classes; dwellers in the Courts of Kings; peasants in their _kampongs_, or villages, by the rivers and the rice-fields; and with the fisher-folk on the seashore. I have tried to describe these things as they appear when viewed from the inside, as I have myself seen them during the many dreary years that I have spent in the wilder parts of the Malay Peninsula. It will be found that the pictures thus drawn are not always attractive--what man's life, when viewed from the inside, ever is pretty to look at? But I have told my tales of these curious companions of my exile, nothing extenuating, but setting down nought in malice. The conditions of life of which I write, more especially in those sketches and tales which deal with native society in an Independent Malay State, are rapidly passing away. Nor can this furnish matter for regret to any one who knew them as they were and still are in some of the wilder and more remote regions of the Peninsula. One may, perhaps, feel some measure of sentimental sorrow that the natural should here, as elsewhere, be replaced by the artificial; one may recognise with sufficient clearness that the Malay in his natural unregenerate state is more attractive an individual than he is apt to become under the influence of European civilisation; but no one who has seen the horrors of native rule, and the misery to which the people living under it are ofttimes reduced, can find room to doubt that, its many drawbacks notwithstanding, the only salvation for the Malays lies in the increase of British influence in the Peninsula, and in the consequent spread of modern ideas, progress, and civilisation. I feel this so strongly that, in common with many of my countrymen, I am content to devote the best years of my life to an attempt to bring about some of those revolutions in facts and in ideas which we hold to be for the ultimate good of the race. None the less, however, this book has been written in a spirit of the deepest sympathy with all classes of Malays, and I have striven throughout to appreciate the native point of view, and to judge the people and their actions by their own standards, rather than by those of a White Man living in their midst. With regard to the tales themselves, many of them have been told to me by natives, and all are more or less founded on fact. Some of the incidents related have come under my personal observation, and for the truth of these I can vouch. For the accuracy of the remaining stories others are responsible, and I can only be held answerable for the framing of the pictures. HUGH CLIFFORD. BRITISH RESIDENCY, PAHANG, MALAY PENINSULA, _November 7, 1896._ CONTENTS As I came through the Desert thus it was, As I came through the Desert. _The City of Dreadful Night._ PAGE 1. THE EAST COAST 1 2. THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST COAST 17 3. THE EXPERIENCES OF RÃJA HAJI HAMID 30 4. THE BATTLE OF THE WOMEN 37 5. IN COCK-PIT AND BULL-RING 46 6. THE WERE-TIGER 62 7. THE ÃMOK OF DÃTO KÃYA BÃJI DERJA 78 8. THE FLIGHT OF CHÃP THE BIRD 96 9. THE VAULTING AMBITION 111 10. 'ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE' 125 11. AMONG THE FISHER-FOLK 134 12. THE STORY OF BÃYAN THE PAROQUET 151 13. THE TALE OF A THEFT 161 14. IN A CAMP OF THE SEMANGS 171 15. HIS HEART'S DESIRE 182 16. A NIGHT OF TERROR 196 17. IN THE DAYS WHEN THE LAND WAS FREE 210 18. UN MAUVAIS QUART D'HEURE 230 19. UP COUNTRY 245 L'ENVOI THE EAST COAST The charmed sunset linger'd low adown In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale And meadow, set with slender galingale; A land where all things always seem'd the same! And round about the keel with faces pale, Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. _The Lotos-Eaters._ In these days, the boot of the ubiquitous white man leaves its marks on all the fair places of the Earth, and scores thereon an even more gigantic track than that which affrighted Robinson Crusoe in his solitude. It crushes down the forests, beats out roads, strides across the rivers, kicks down native institutions, and generally tramples on the growths of nature, and the works of primitive man, reducing all things to that dead level of conventionality, which we call civilisation. Incidentally, it stamps out much of what is best in the customs and characteristics of the native races against which it brushes; and, though it relieves them of many things which hurt and oppressed them ere it came, it injures them morally almost as much as it benefits them materially. We, who are white men, admire our work not a little--which is natural--and many are found willing to wear out their souls in efforts to clothe in the stiff garments of European conventionalities, the naked, brown limbs of Orientalism. The natives, who, for the most part, are frank Vandals, also admire efforts of which they are aware that they are themselves incapable, and even the _laudator temporis acti_ has his mouth stopped by the cheap and often tawdry luxury, which the coming of the Europeans has placed within his reach. So effectually has the heel of the white man been ground into the face of PÃªrak and SelÃ¢ngor, that these Native States are now only nominally what their name implies. The alien population far out-numbers the people of the land in most of the principal districts, and it is possible for a European to spend weeks in either of these States without coming into contact with any Asiatics save those who wait at table, wash his shirts, or drive his cab. It is also possible, I am told, for a European to spend years on the West Coast of the Peninsula without acquiring any very profound knowledge of the natives of the country, or of the language which is their speech-medium. This being so, most of the white men who live in the Protected Native States are somewhat apt to disregard the effect which their actions have upon the natives, and labour under the common European inability to view matters from the native standpoint. Moreover, we have become accustomed to existing conditions, and thus it is that few, perhaps, realise the precise nature of the work which the British in the Peninsula have set themselves to accomplish. What we are really attempting, however, is nothing less than to crush into twenty years the revolutions in facts and in ideas which, even in energetic Europe, six long centuries have been needed to accomplish. No one will, of course, be found to dispute that the strides made in our knowledge of the art of government, since the Thirteenth Century, are prodigious and vast, nor that the general condition of the people of Europe has been immensely improved since that day; but, nevertheless, one cannot but sympathise with the Malays, who are suddenly and violently translated from the point to which they had attained in the natural development of their race, and are required to live up to the standards of a people who are six centuries in advance of them in national progress. If a plant is made to blossom or bear fruit three months before its time, it is regarded as a triumph of the gardener's art; but what, then, are we to say of this huge moral-forcing system which we call 'Protection'? Forced plants, we know, suffer in the process; and the Malay, whose proper place is amidst the conditions of the Thirteenth Century, is apt to become morally weak and seedy, and to lose something of his robust self-respect, when he is forced to bear Nineteenth-Century fruit. Until the British Government interfered in the administration of the Malay States in 1874, the people of the Peninsula were, to all intents and purposes, living in the Middle Ages. Each State was ruled by its own SultÃ¢n or _RÃ¢ja_ under a complete Feudal System, which presents a curiously close parallel to that which was in force in MediÃ¦val Europe. The _RÃ¢ja_ was, of course, the paramount authority, and all power emanated from him. Technically, the whole country was his property, and all its inhabitants his slaves; but each State was divided into districts which were held in fief by the _Ãrang Besar_, or Great Chiefs. The conditions on which these fiefs were held, were homage, and military and other service. The Officers were hereditary, but succession was subject to the sanction of the _RÃ¢ja_, who personally invested and ennobled each Chief, and gave him, as an ostensible sign of authority, a warrant and a State spear, both of which were returned to the _RÃ¢ja_ on the death of the holder. As in Europe, high treason (_derhÃ¢ka_) was the only offence which warranted the _RÃ¢ja_ in forfeiting a fief. Each of the districts was sub-divided into minor baronies, which were held, on a similar tenure, from the District Chief by a _DÃ¢toâ MÃ»da_; and the village communes, of which these baronies were composed, were held in a like manner, and on similar conditions, by the Headmen from the _DÃ¢toâ MÃ»da_. When war or any other public work was toward, the _RÃ¢ja_ summoned the Great Chiefs, who transmitted the order to their _DÃ¢toâ MÃ»da_. By the latter, the village Headmen and their able-bodied _rÃ¤ayat_[1] were called together, the free-holders in each village being bound to the local _PenghÃ»lu_[2] by ties similar to those which bound him to his immediate Chief. In the same way, the _RÃ¢ja_ made his demands for money-grants to the Great Chiefs, and the _rÃ¤ayat_ supplied the necessary contributions, while their superiors gained the credit attaching to those who fulfil the desires of the King. Under this system, the _rÃ¤ayat_ of course, possessed no rights, either of person or property. He was entirely in the hands of the Chiefs, was forced to labour unremittingly that others might profit by his toil; and neither his life, his land, his cattle, nor the very persons of his women-folk, could properly be said to belong to him, since all were at the mercy of any one who desired to take them from him, and was strong enough to do so. This, of course, is the weak point in the Feudal System, and was probably not confined to the peoples of Asia. The chroniclers of MediÃ¦val Europe tell only of Princes and Nobles, and Knights and Dames--and merry tales they are--but we are left to guess what was the condition of the bulk of the lower classes in Thirteenth-Century England. If we knew all, however, it is probable that their lot would prove to have been but little more fortunate than is that of the Malay _rÃ¤ayat_ of to-day, whose hardships and grievances, under native rule, move our modern souls to indignation and compassion. Therefore, we should be cautious how we apply our _fin de siÃ¨cle_ standards to a people whose ideas of the fitness of things are much the same as those which prevailed in Europe some six centuries agone. [Footnote 1: _RÃ¤ayat_ = Peasants, villagers.] [Footnote 2: _PenghÃ»lu_ = Headman.] Those who love to indulge in that pleasing but singularly useless pastime of imagining what might have been under certain impossible circumstances, will find occupation in speculating as to whether the Malays, had they remained free from all extraneous influence for another thousand years, would ever have succeeded in evolving a system of Government in any way resembling our own, out of a Feudal System which presents so curious a parallel to that from which our modern institutions have sprung. Would the Great Chiefs have ever combined to wrest a Magna Charta from an unwilling King, and the _rÃ¤ayat_ have succeeded in beating down the tyranny of their Chiefs? No answer can be given; but those who know the Malays best will find reason to doubt whether the energy of the race would ever, under any circumstances, have been sufficient to grapple with these great questions. The _rÃ¤ayat_ would have been content, I fancy, to plod on through the centuries 'without hope of change'; and, so far as the past history of a people can be taken as giving an indication of its future, it would seem that, in Malay countries, the growing tendencies made rather for an absolute than for a limited monarchy. The genius of the Malay is in most things mimetic rather than original, and, where he has no other model at hand to copy, he falls back upon the past. An observer of Malay political tendencies in an Independent Native State finds himself placed in the position of Inspector Bucket--there is no move on the board which would surprise him, provided that it is in the wrong direction. Such changes have been wrought in the condition of the Malay on the West Coast, during the past twenty years of British Protection, that there one can no longer see him in his natural and unregenerate state. He has become sadly dull, limp, and civilised. The gossip of the Court, and the tales of ill things done daringly, which delighted his fathers, can scarcely quicken his slackened pulses. His wooings have lost their spice of danger, and, with it, more than half their romance. He is as frankly profligate as his thin blood permits, but the dissipation in which he indulges only makes him a disreputable member of society, and calls for none of the manly virtues which make the Malay attractive to those who know and love him in his truculent untamed state. On the East Coast, things are different, and the Malay States are still what they profess to be--States in which the native element predominates, where the people still think boldly from right to left, and lead much the same lives as those their forbears led before them. Here are still to be found some of the few remaining places, on this over-handled Earth, which have as yet been but little disturbed by extraneous influences, and here the lover of things as they are, and ought not to be, may find a dwelling among an unregenerate and more or less uncivilised people, whose customs are still unsullied by European vulgarity, and the surface of whose lives is but little ruffled by the fever-heated breath of European progress. As you crush your way out of the crowded roadstead of Singapore, and skirting the red cliffs of TÃ¢nah MÃªrah, slip round the heel of the Peninsula, you turn your back for a space on the seas in which ships jostle one another, and betake yourself to a corner of the globe where the world is very old, and where conditions of life have seen but little change during the last thousand years. The only modern innovation is an occasional 'caster,' or sea tramp, plying its way up the coast to pick up a precarious profit for its owners by carrying cargoes of evil-smelling trade from the fishing villages along the shore. Save for this, there is nothing to show that white men ever visit these seas, and, sailing up the coast in a native craft, you may almost fancy yourself one of the early explorers skirting the lovely shores of some undiscovered country. As you sprawl on the bamboo decking under the shadow of the immense palm leaf sail--which is so ingeniously rigged that, if taken aback, the boat must turn turtle, unless, by the blessing of the gods, the mast parts asunder--you look out through half-closed eyelids at a very beautiful coast. The waves dance, and glimmer, and shine in the sunlight, the long stretch of sand is yellow as a buttercup, and the fringes of graceful _casuarina_ trees quiver like aspens in the breeze, and shimmer in the heat haze. The wash of the waves against the boat's side, and the ripple of the bow make music in your drowsy ears, and, as you glide through cluster after cluster of thickly-wooded islands, you lie in that delightful comatose state in which you have all the pleasure of existence with none of the labour of living. The monsoon threshes across these seas for four months in the year, and keeps them fresh, and free from the dingy mangrove clumps, and hideous banks of mud, which breed fever and mosquitoes in the Straits of Malacca. In the interior, too, patches of open country abound, such as are but rarely met with on the West Coast, but here, as elsewhere in the Peninsula, the jungles, which shut down around them, are impenetrable to anything less persuasive than an axe. These forests are among the wonderful things of the Earth. They are immense in extent, and the trees which form them grow so close together that they tread on one another's toes. All are lashed, and bound, and relashed, into one huge magnificent tangled net, by the thickest underwood, and the most marvellous parasitic growths that nature has ever devised. No human being can force his way through this maze of trees, and shrubs, and thorns, and plants, and creepers; and even the great beasts which dwell in the jungle find their strength unequal to the task, and have to follow game paths, beaten out by the passage of innumerable animals, through the thickest and deepest parts of the forest. The branches cross and recross, and are bound together by countless parasitic creepers, forming a green canopy overhead, through which the fierce sunlight only forces a partial passage, the struggling rays flecking the trees on which they fall with little splashes of light and colour. The air 'hangs heavy as remembered sin,' and the gloom of a great cathedral is on every side. Everything is damp, and moist, and oppressive. The soil, and the cool dead leaves under foot are dank with decay, and sodden to the touch. Enormous fungous growths flourish luxuriantly; and over all, during the long hot hours of the day, hangs a silence as of the grave. Though these jungles teem with life, no living thing is to be seen, save the busy ants, a few brilliantly-coloured butterflies and insects, and an occasional nest of bees high up in the tree-tops. A little stream ripples its way over the pebbles of its bed, and makes a humming murmur in the distance; a faint breeze sweeping over the forest gently sways the upper branches of a few of the tallest trees; but, for the rest, all is melancholy, silent, and motionless. As the hour of sunset approaches, the tree beetles and cicada join in their strident chorus, which tells of the dying day; the thrushes join in the song with rich trills and grace-notes; the jungle fowls crow to one another; the monkeys whoop and give tongue like a pack of foxhounds; the gaudy parrots scream and flash as they hunt for flies; And all the long-pent stream of life Bursts downwards in a cataract. Then, as you lie listening through the long watches of the night, sounds are borne to you which tell that the jungle is afoot. The argus pheasants yell to one another as the hours creep by; the far-away trumpet of an elephant breaks the stillness; and the frightened barking cry of a deer comes to you from across the river. The insects are awake all night, and the little workman bird sits on a tree close by you and drives coffin nails without number. With the dawn, the tree beetles again raise their chorus; the birds sing and trill more sweetly than in the evening; the monkeys bark afresh as they leap through the branches; and the leaves of the forest glisten in the undried dew. Then, as the sun mounts, and the dew dries, the sounds of the jungle die down one by one, until the silence of the forest is once more unbroken for the long hot day. Through these jungles innumerable streams and rivers flow seawards; for so marvellously is this country watered that, from end to end of the Peninsula, no two hills are found, but there is a stream of some sort in the gut which divides them. Far up-country, the rivers run riot through long successions of falls and rapids, but as they near the coast, they settle down into broad imposing looking streams, miles wide in places, but for the most part uniformly shallow, the surfaces of which are studded with green islands and yellow sandbanks. These rivers, on the East Coast, form the principal, and often the only highways, many of them being navigated for nearly three hundred miles of their course. When they become too much obstructed by falls to be navigable even for a dug-out, they still serve the Malays of the interior as highways. Where they are very shallow indeed they are used as tracks, men wading up them for miles and miles. A river-bed is a path ready cleared through the forests, and, to the Semang,[3] SÃ¢kai,[4] and jungle-bred Malay, it is Nature's macadamized road. More often the unnavigable streams serve as guides to the traveller in the dense jungles, the tracks running up their banks, crossing and recrossing them at frequent intervals. One of these paths, which leads from TrenggÃ¢nu to Kelantan, crosses the same river no less than thirty times in about six miles, and, in most places, the fords are well above a tall man's knee. The stream is followed until a _ka-naik_--or taking-off place--is reached, and, leaving it, the traveller crosses a low range of hills, and presently strikes the banks of a stream, which belongs to another river basin. A path, similar to the one which he has just left, leads down this stream, and by following it he will eventually reach inhabited country. No man need ever lose himself in a Malay jungle. He can never have any difficulty in finding running water, and this, if followed down, means a river, and a river presupposes a village sooner or later. In the same way, a knowledge of the localities in which the rivers of a country rise, and a rough idea of the directions in which they flow, are all the geographical data which are required in order to enable you to find your way, unaided, into any portion of that, or the adjoining States which you may desire to visit. This is the secret of travelling through Malay jungles, in places where the white man's roads are still far to seek, and where the natives are content to move slowly, as their fathers did before them. [Footnote 3: _Semang_ = Aboriginal natives of the Peninsula, belonging to the Negrit family.] [Footnote 4: _SÃ¢kai_ = Aboriginal natives of the Peninsula, belonging to the Mon-Annam family.] The Malay States on the East of the Peninsula are SenggÃ´ra, PetÃ¢ni, Jambe, JÃ¢ring, RÃ¢man, Legeh, Kelantan, TrenggÃ¢nu, Pahang, and Johor. SenggÃ´ra possesses the doubtful privilege of being ruled by a Siamese Official, who is appointed from Bangkok, as the phrase goes, to _kin_--or eat--the surrounding district. The next four States are usually spoken of collectively as PetÃ¢ni, by Europeans, though the territory which really bears that name is of insignificant importance and area, the jurisdiction of its _RÃ¢ja_ only extending up the PetÃ¢ni river as far as Jambe. It is said that when the RÃ¢ja of PetÃ¢ni and the ruler of the latter State had a difference of opinion, the former was obliged to send to Kelantan for his drinking water, since he could not trust his neighbour to refrain from poisoning the supply, which flows from Jambe through his kingdom. Uneasy indeed must lie the head which wears the crown of PetÃ¢ni! All the States, as far down the coast as Legeh, are under the protection of the Siamese Government. Kelantan and TrenggÃ¢nu still claim to be independent, though they send the _bÃ»nga amas_--or golden flower--to Bangkok once in three years. Pahang was placed under British Protection in 1888, and Johor is still independent, though its relations with the Government of Great Britain are very much the same as those which subsist between Siam and the Malay States of Kelantan and TrenggÃ¢nu. The _bÃ»nga amas_, to which reference has been made above, consists of two ornamental plants, with leaves and flowers, fashioned from gold and silver, and their value is estimated at about $5000. The sum necessary to defray the cost of these gifts is raised by means of a _banchi_ or poll-tax, to which every adult male contributes; and the return presents, sent from Bangkok, are of precisely the same value, and are, of course, a perquisite of the _RÃ¢ja_. The exact significance of these gifts is a question of which very different views are taken by the parties concerned. The Siamese maintain that the _bÃ»nga amas_ is a direct admission of suzerainty on the part of the _RÃ¢ja_ who sends it, while the Malay SultÃ¢ns and their Chiefs entirely deny this, and hold that it is merely _tanda sâpakat dan ber-sehÃ¢bat_--a token of alliance and friendship. It is not, perhaps, generally known that, as late as 1826, PÃªrak was in the habit of sending a similar gift to Siam, and that the British Government bound itself not to restrain the SultÃ¢n of Perak from continuing this practice if he had a mind to do so. From this it would seem that there is some grounds for the contention of TrenggÃ¢nu and Kelantan that the _bÃ»nga amas_ is a purely voluntary gift, sent as a token of friendship to a more powerful State, with which the sender desires to be on terms of amity. Be this how it may, it is certain that SultÃ¢n MansÃ»r of TrenggÃ¢nu, who first sent the _bÃ»nga amas_ to Siam in 1776, did so, not in compliance with any demand made by the Siamese Government, but because he deemed it wise to be on friendly terms with the only race in his vicinity which was capable, in his opinion, of doing him a hurt. Direct interference in the Government of Kelantan and TrenggÃ¢nu has been more than once attempted by the Siamese, during the last few years, strenuous efforts having been made to increase their influence on the East Coast of the Peninsula, since the visit of the King of Siam to the Malay States in 1890. In TrenggÃ¢nu, all these endeavours have been of no avail, and the Siamese have abandoned several projects which were devised in order to give them a hold over this State. In Kelantan, internal troubles have aided Siamese intrigues, the present _RÃ¢ja_ and his late brother both having so insecure a seat upon their thrones that they readily made concessions to the Siamese in order to purchase their support. Thus, at the present time, the flag of the White Elephant floats at the mouth of the Kelantan river on State occasions, though the administration of the country is still entirely in the hands of the _RÃ¢ja_ and his Chiefs. The methods of Malay rulers, when they are unchecked by extraneous influences, are very curious; and those who desire to see the Malay _RÃ¢ja_ and the Malay _rÃ¤ayat_ in their natural condition, must nowadays study life on the East Coast. Nowhere else has the Malay been so little changed by the advancing years, and those who are only acquainted with the West Coast and its people, as they are to-day, will find much to learn when they visit the Eastern sea-board. Until British interference changed the conditions which existed in Pahang, that country was the best type of an independent Malay State in the Peninsula, and much that was to be seen and learned in Pahang, in the days before the appointment of a British Resident, cannot now be experienced in quite the same measure anywhere else. Both TrenggÃ¢nu and Kelantan have produced their strong rulers--for instance, Baginda Ãmar of TrenggÃ¢nu, and the 'Red-mouthed SultÃ¢n' of Kelantan--but neither of the present _RÃ¢jas_ can boast anything resembling the same personality and force of character, or are possessed of the same power and influence, as distinguished SultÃ¢n Ãhmad MaÃ¤tham Shah of Pahang, in the brave days before the coming of the white men. In subsequent articles, I hope, by sketching a few events which have occurred in some of the States on the East Coast; by relating some characteristic incidents, many of which have come within my experience; and by descriptions of the conditions of life among the natives, as I have known them; to give my European readers some idea of a state of Society, wholly unlike anything to which they are accustomed, and which must inevitably be altered out of all recognition by the rapidly increasing influence of foreigners in the Malay Peninsula. THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST COAST I have eaten your rice and salt. I have drunk the milk of your kine, The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives that ye lived were mine. Is there aught that I did not share, In vigil, or toil, or ease, One joy or woe that I did not know, Dear hearts beyond the seas? KIPLING (adapted). Although the States on the East Coast lie in very close proximity one with another, the people who inhabit them differ widely among themselves, not only in appearance, in costume, and in the dialects which they speak, but also in manners, customs, and character. The Pahang Malay, in his unregenerate state, thinks chiefly of deeds of arms, illicit love intrigues, and the sports which his religion holds to be sinful. He is a cock-fighter, a gambler, and a brawler; he has an overweening opinion of himself, his country, and his race; he is at once ignorant, irreligious, and unintellectual; and his arrogance has passed into a proverb.[5] He has many good qualities also, and is, above all things, manly and reckless,--as those who know him well, and love him, can bear witness,--but his faults are very much on the surface, and he is at no pains to hide them, being proud rather than ashamed of the reputation which they cause him to bear. He is more gracefully built than are most other natives on the East Coast, he dresses within an inch of his life, and often carries the best part of his property on his back and about his person,--for, like all gamblers, he is hopelessly improvident. He is a sportsman as soon as he can walk upon his feet without the aid of the supporting _Ã¢dan_;[6] he is in love as a permanent arrangement, and will go to any length, and run any risk, in order to satisfy his desires; and, as he is exceedingly touchy, and quick to take offence, he frequently seems to be in the condition which is known as 'spoiling for a fight.' He is apt to 'buck' about the brave deeds of himself and his countrymen, in an untamed way which would discredit the Colonel of a Regiment--who is privileged to 'buck' because his officers cannot attempt to check him. He knows many strange tales of 'lamentable things done long ago and ill done'; he is extraordinarily loyal to his _RÃ¢jas_ and Chiefs, who have not always acted in a way to inspire devotion; he is capable of the most disinterested affection; he loves his wives and his little ones dearly; and, if once he trusts a man, will do anything in the wide world at that man's bidding. He is clean in his habits; nice about his food and his surroundings; is generally cheery; and is blest with a saving sense of humour, provided that the joke is at the expense of neither himself nor his relations. Like many people who love field sports, he hates books almost as much as he hates work. He can never be induced to study his Scriptures, and he only prays under compulsion, and attends the mosque on Friday because he wishes to avoid a fine. He never works if he can help it, and often will not suffer himself to be induced or tempted into doing so by offers of the most extravagant wages. If, when promises and persuasion have failed, however, the magic word _krah_ is whispered in his ears, he will come without a murmur, and work really hard for no pay, bringing with him his own supply of food. _Krah_, as everybody knows, is the system of forced labour which is a State perquisite in unprotected Malay countries, and an ancestral instinct, inherited from his fathers, seems to prompt him to comply cheerfully with this custom, when on no other terms whatsoever would he permit himself to do a stroke of work. When so engaged, he will labour as no other man will do. I have had Pahang Malays working continuously for sixty hours at a stretch, and all on a handful of boiled rice; but they will only do this for one they know, whom they regard as their Chief, and in whose sight they would be ashamed to murmur at the severity of the work, or to give in when all are sharing the strain in equal measure. [Footnote 5: KÃªchek Ã¢nak MalÃ¢ka; bÃ»al Ã¢nak MenangkÃ¢bau; tÃ®pu Ã¢nak Rambau; bidaÃ¤h Ã¢nak TrenggÃ¢nu; pen-Ã¢kut Ã¢nak Singapura; penjelok Ã¢nak Kelantan; sÃ´mbong Ã¢nak Pahang. Wheedlers are the men of Malacca; boasters the men of MenangkÃ¢bau; cheats the men of Rambau; liars the men of TrenggÃ¢nu; cowards the men of Singapore; thieves the men of Kelantan; and arrogant are the men of Pahang.] [Footnote 6: Adan = A hand-rail by means of which Malay children are taught to stand and walk.] The natives of TrenggÃ¢nu are of a very different type. First and foremost, they are men of peace. Their sole interest in life is the trade or occupation which they ply, and they have none of that pride of race and country, which is so marked in the Pahang Malay. All they ask is to be allowed to make money, to study, or to earn a livelihood unmolested; and they have none of that 'loyal passion' for their intemperate Kings, which is such a curious feature in the character of the people of Pahang, who have had to suffer many things at the hands of their _rÃ¢jas_. When Baginda Ãmar conquered TrenggÃ¢nu in 1837, the people submitted to him without a struggle, and, if a stronger than he had tried to wrest the country from him, the bulk of the people would most certainly have acquiesced once more with equal calmness. Study, trade, the skill of the artisan, 'and fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace,' these are the things in which all the interests of the TrenggÃ¢nu Malay are centred. From his earliest infancy he grows up in an atmosphere of books, and money and trade, and manufactures, and bargainings, and hagglings. He knows how to praise the goods he is selling, and how to depreciate the wares he is buying, almost as soon as he can speak; and the unblushing manner in which he will hold forth concerning the antiquity of some article which he has made with his own hands, and the entire absence of all _mauvaise honte_ which he displays when detected in the fraud, have earned for him the reputation he proverbially bears of being the best liar in the Peninsula. The Pahang boy grows up amid talk of war and rumours of war, which makes him long to be a man that he may use his weapons, almost before he has learned to stand upon his feet. Not so the young idea of TrenggÃ¢nu. Men go about armed, of course, for such is the custom in all Independent Malay States, but they have little skill with spear or knife, and, since a proficiency as a scholar, an artisan, or as a shrewd man of business wins more credit than does a reputation for valour, the people of TrenggÃ¢nu generally grow up cowards, and are not very much ashamed of standing so confessed. In his own line, however, the TrenggÃ¢nu Malay is far in advance of any other natives on the East Coast, or indeed in the Peninsula. He has generally read his _KurÃ¢n_ through, from end to end, before he has reached his teens, and, as the Malay character differs but slightly from the Arabic, he thereafter often acquires a knowledge of how to read and write his own language. But a study of the Muhammadan Scriptures is apt to breed religious animosity, in the crude oriental mind, and the race of local saints, who have succeeded one another at PÃ¢loh for several generations, have been instrumental in fomenting this feeling. Ungku Saiyid of PÃ¢loh--the 'local holy man' for the time being--like his prototype in the _Naulahka_, has done much to agitate the minds of the people, and to create a 'commotion of popular bigotry.' He is a man of an extraordinary personality. His features are those of the pure Arab caste, and they show the ultra-refinement of one who is pinched with long fasts and other ascetic practices. Moreover, he has the unbounded vanity and self-conceit which is born of long years of adulation, and is infected by that touch of madness which breeds 'Cranks' in modern Europe, and 'Saints' in modern Asia. He preaches to crowded congregations thrice weekly, and the men of TrenggÃ¢nu flock from all parts of the country to sit at his feet. The SultÃ¢n, too, like his father, and his great-uncle, Baginda Ãmar, has been at some pains to ensure the performance of religious rites by all his people, and, as far as outward observances go, he appears to have been successful. Moreover, the natives of TrenggÃ¢nu love religious and learned discussions of all kinds, and most of them: When young, do eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint and hear great argument About it and about, though, like poor Omar, they never seem to arrive at any conclusions which have not previously been used by them as a starting-point. All this makes for fanaticism,--which, however, with so cowardly a people, is more likely to be noisy than violent,--and all such sinful sports as cock-fighting, bull fights, gambling, and the like, are forbidden by law to the people of TrenggÃ¢nu. In spite of all this, however, the natives of this State do not really lead lives in any degree more clean than is customary among other Malays. Their morals are, for the most part, those of the streets of London after eleven o'clock on a Saturday night. It is as an artisan, however, that the TrenggÃ¢nu Malay really excels. The best products of their looms, the brass and nickel utensils, some of the weapons, and most of the woodwork fashioned in TrenggÃ¢nu, are the best native made wares, of their kind, in the Peninsula, and the extreme ingenuity with which they imitate the products of other States, or Islands of the Archipelago, is quite unrivalled in this part of the world. Silk _sÃ¢rongs_, in close imitation of those woven in Pahang and Kelantan, are made cheap, and sold as the genuine articles. Bales of the white turban cloths, flecked with gold thread, which are so much worn by men who have returned from the _Haj_, are annually exported to Mecca, where they are sold, as articles of real Arabic manufacture, to the confiding pilgrims. All these silks and cloths fade and wear out with inconceivable rapidity, but, until this occurs, the purchaser is but rarely able to detect the fraud of which he has been a victim. Weapons, too, are made in exact imitation of those produced by the natives of Celebes or Java, and it is often not until the silver watering on the blades begins to crack and peel--like paint on a plank near a furnace--that their real origin becomes known. At the present time, the artisans of TrenggÃ¢nu are largely engaged in making exact imitations of the local currency, to the exceeding dolor of the SultÃ¢n, and with no small profit to themselves. In appearance, the TrenggÃ¢nu Malay is somewhat larger boned, broader featured, and more clumsily put together than is the typical Pahang Malay. He also dresses somewhat differently, and it is easy to detect the nationality of a TrenggÃ¢nu man, even before he opens his mouth in speech. The difference in appearance is subtle, and to one who is not used to Malays, the natives of Pahang, Kelantan, and TrenggÃ¢nu have nothing to distinguish them one from another, whereas, after a year or two on the East Coast, what at first are almost imperceptible differences, are soon recognised as being widely distinguishing marks. The Kelantan man is, to the native of Pahang, what the water-buffalo is to a short-horn. To begin with, to the uninitiated he is wholly unintelligible. He grunts at one like the fatted pig at the Agricultural Shows, and expects one to understand the meaning which he attaches to these grunts. This proves him to be sanguine but unintelligent. He cannot understand any dialect but his own,--which is convincing evidence to non-Kelantan Malays that he is a born fool,--and he is apt to complain bitterly of the accents of strangers, whereas, to all but his own countrymen, it is _his_ accent which appears to be the real grievance. He is plain of face, fat, ugly, and ungainly of body, huge as to the hands and feet, not scrupulously clean in his person and habits, and, like most very fleshy people, he is blessed with an exceedingly even temper, and is excessively happy, good-natured, and stolid. He can break open a door by butting it with his head, and the door is the only sufferer. [Ãwang KepÃ¢la Kras--Ãwang of the Hard Head--who is a Kelantan Malay, backs himself to butt a trained fighting ram out of time!] He can lift great weights, walk long distances, pole or paddle a boat for many hours at a stretch, and can, and does, work more than any other Malay. This huge mass of fleshy brown humanity is reared on a pound or two of boiled rice, and a few shreds of fish. To see him eat is to be attacked with a lasting loathing for food. He takes in his rice as though stoking a steamboat. The coal shovel is his ponderous fist, and the extent to which his cheeks are capable of stretching alone regulates the size of his mouthfuls. He is, in every way, coarser-grained than any other Malay. He has much less self-respect; is rarely touchy and sensitive, as are other natives of the Peninsula; and when he is brave, it is with the courage of the blind, who know not the extent of the danger which they are facing. An utter want of imagination goes to the making of more heroes than it is pleasant to think about, since people who cannot picture consequences, and forecast risks, deserve but little credit for the courage which they display, but are unable to appreciate. To his neighbours on the East Coast, however, all the other remarkable characteristics of the Kelantan Malay are lost sight of, or rather, are completely overshadowed, by his reputation as a thief among thieves. In vain have successive generations of Kelantan _rÃ¢jas_ cut off the hands, feet, and heads of detected or suspected burglars and robbers; in vain have all sorts of stratagems been adopted by travellers as precautions against thieves; and in vain have the families of convicted men been punished for the deeds of their relations. Nothing, apparently, can stamp out the instinct which prompts high and low, rich and poor, to take possession of any property belonging to someone else whenever the opportunity offers. Men with flocks and herds, and _pÃ¢di_ swamps, and fruit orchards, steal if they get the chance just as much as does the indigent peasant who has sold his last child into slavery for three dollars in cash. Most of the great chiefs of the country do not steal in person, but they keep bands of paid ruffians who do that work for them, in return for their protection, and a share of the takings. The skill with which some Kelantan Malays pick a pocket, and the ingenuity displayed in their burglaries, would not discredit a pupil of Fagin the Jew; and robbery with violence is almost equally common. Their favourite weapon is an uncanny looking instrument called _pÃ¢rang jengok_--or the 'peeping' knife--which is armed with a sharp peak at the tip, standing out almost at right angles to the rest of the blade. Armed with this, on a dark night, the robber walks down a street, and just as he passes a man, he strikes back over his left shoulder, so that the peak catches his victim in the back of the head, and knocks him endways. He can then be robbed with ease and comfort, and, whether he recovers from the blow or dies from its effects is his own affair, and concerns the thief not at all. It is not very long ago since two men were found lying senseless in the streets of KÃ´ta Bharu, each having put the other _hors de combat_ with a _pÃ¢rang jengok_, striking at the same moment, in the same way, and with the same amiable intention. To save further trouble they each had their hands cut off, as soon as they came round, by the SultÃ¢n's order. This, when you come to think of it, was a sound course for the SultÃ¢n to pursue. The women of Kelantan are, many of them, well favoured enough. They are, for the most part, fine upstanding wenches, somewhat more largely built than most Malay women, and they appear more in public than is usual in the Peninsula. At KÃ´ta Bharu, women, both young and old, crowd the markets at all hours of the day, and do most of the selling and buying. They converse freely with strangers, go about unveiled, and shew no signs of that affected bashfulness, which cloaks the very indifferent morals of the average Malay woman, but which it is a point of honour with her to assume when in the presence of men. In Kelantan, both men and women dress differently from Malays in other States. The men wear neither coats nor trousers, but they bind a _sÃ¢rong_ and three or four sashes about their waists. The _sÃ¢rong_ generally comes down to the knee, and, when seated, the knee-caps are often exposed, even in the King's _BÃ¢lai_,--a practice that would not be tolerated in any other part of the Peninsula. The women also dispense with an upper garment, and make up the deficiency by a lavish use of _sÃ¢rong_ and scarves. The shoulders and upper portion of the chest, however, are left bare. These and other practices, cause the Kelantan Malays to be much despised by the peoples of other Native States, who regard them as unmannerly and uncouth. Indeed, prior to 1888, few Kelantan men dared to set foot in Pahang, for, as an old Chief once said in my presence, the only use a Pahang native had for a Kelantan Malay, before the coming of the white men, was 'as a thing wherewith to sharpen the blade of his dagger,' and this, be it
{'title': 'In Court and Kampong by Sir Hugh Charles Clifford', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}