In writing of the âmok, which Dâto’ Kâya Bîji Dĕrja ran in the streets of Kuâla Trĕnggânu, I have spoken of suicide as being of very rare occurrence among Malays of either sex, and, indeed, I know of no authenticated case in which a man of these people has taken his life with his own hand. A Chinaman, who has had a difference of opinion with a friend, or who conceives that he has been ill-treated by the Powers that be, betakes himself to his dwelling, and there deliberately hangs himself with his pig-tail, dying happy in the pleasing belief that his spirit will haunt those who have done him a wrong, and render the remainder of their lives upon earth 'one demned horrid grind.' Not so the Malay. He, being gifted with the merest rudiments of an imagination, prefers to take practical vengeance on his kind by means of a knife, to trusting to such supernatural retaliation as may be effected after death by his ghost.

This story deals with a suicide which occurred in Pahang in July 1893, and I have selected it to tell, because the circumstances were remarkable, and are quite unprecedented in my experience.

If you go up the Pahang River for a hundred and eighty miles, you come to a spot where the stream divides into two main branches, and where the name Pahang dies an ignominious death in a small ditch, which debouches at their point of junction. The right stream,—using the term in its topographical sense,—is the Jĕlai, and the left is the Tĕmbĕling. If you go up the latter, you come to rapids innumerable, a few gambir plantations, and a great many of the best ruffians in the Peninsula, who are also my very good friends. If you follow the Jĕlai up past Kuâla Lĭpis, where the river of the latter name falls into it on its right bank, and on, and on, and on, you come to the Sâkai country, where the Malay language is still unknown, and where the horizon of the people is formed by the impenetrable jungle that shuts down on the other side of a slender stream, and is further narrowed by the limitations of an intellect which cannot conceive an arithmetical idea higher than the numeral three. Before you run your nose into these uncleanly places, however, you pass through a district dotted with scattered Malay habitations; and, if you turn off up the Tĕlang River, you find a little open country, and some prosperous-looking villages.

One day in July 1893, a feast in honour of a wedding was being held in one of these places, and the scene was a lively one. The head and skin of a buffalo, and the pools of blood, which showed where its carcase had been dismembered, were a prominent feature in the foreground, lying displayed in a very unappetising manner on a little piece of open ground. In one part of the village two men were posturing in one of the inane sword-dances which are so dear to all Malays, each performance being a subject of keen criticism or hearty admiration to the spectators. The drums and gongs meanwhile beat a rhythmical time, which makes the heaviest heels long to move more quickly, and the onlookers whooped and yelled again and again in shrill far-sounding chorus. The shout is the same as that which is raised by Malays when in battle; and, partly from its tone, and partly from association, one never hears it without a thrill, and some sympathetic excitement. It has a similar effect upon the Malays, who love to raise a sôrak,—as these choric shouts are termed,—and the enthusiasm which it arouses is felt to be infectious, and speedily becomes maddening and intense.

All the men present were dressed in many-coloured silks and tartans, and were armed with daggers as befits warriors, but, if you had an eye for such things, you would have noticed that all the garments and weapons were worn in a manner which would have excited the ridicule of a down-country Malay. It is not in Europe only, that the country cousin furnishes food for laughter to his relatives in the towns.

In a Bâlai, specially erected for the purposes of the feast, a number of priests, and pilgrims, and lĕbai,—that class of fictitious religious mendicants, whose members are usually some of the richest men in the villages they inhabit,—were seated gravely intoning the Kurân, but stopping to chew betel-nut, and to gossip scandalously, at frequent intervals. The wag, too, was present among them, for he is an inevitable feature in all Malay gatherings, and he is generally one of the local holy men. 'It ain't precisely what 'e says, it's the funny way 'e says it;'—for, like the professionally comic man all the world over, these individuals are popularly supposed to be invariably amusing, and a loud guffaw goes up whenever they open their mouths, no matter what the words that issue from them. Most of his hearers had heard his threadbare old jokes any time these twenty years, but the ready laughter greeted each of them in turn, as though they were newly born into the world. A Malay does not understand that a joke may pall from repetition, and is otherwise liable to be driven into the ground. He will ask for the same story, or the same jest time after time; prefers that it should be told in the same manner, and in the same words; and will laugh in the same place, with equal zest, at each repetition, just as do little children among ourselves. A similar failure to appreciate the eternal fitness of things, causes a Malay Râja, when civilised, to hang seven copies of the same unlovely photograph around the walls of his sitting-room.

Meanwhile, the women-folk had come from far and near, to help to prepare the feast, and the men, having previously done the heavy work of carrying the water, hewing the firewood, jointing the meat, and crushing the curry stuff, they were all busily engaged in the back premises of the house, cooking as only Malay women can cook, and keeping up a constant babble of shrill trebles, varied by an occasional excited scream of direction from one of the more senior women among them. The younger and prettier girls had carried their work to the door of the house, and thence were engaging at long range in the game of 'eye play,'—as the Malays call it,—with the youths of the village, little heeding the havoc they were making in susceptible male breasts, whose wounds, however, they would be ready enough to heal, as occasion offered, with a limitless generosity.

The bride, of course, having being dressed in her best, and loaded with gold ornaments, borrowed from many miles around, which had served to deck every bride in the district ever since any one could remember, was left seated on the gĕta, or raised sleeping platform, in the dimly lighted inner apartments, there to await the ordeal known to Malay cruelty as sanding. The ceremony that bears this name, is the one at which the bride and bridegroom are brought together for the first time. They are officially supposed never to have seen one another before, though no Malay who respects himself ever allows his fiancée to be finally selected, until he has crept under her house, in the night time, and watched her through the bamboo flooring, or through the chinks in the wattled walls. They are led forth by their respective relations, and placed side by side upon a dais, prepared for the purpose, where they remain seated for hours, while the guests eat a feast in their presence, and thereafter chant verses from the Kurân. During this ordeal they must sit motionless, no matter how their cramped legs may ache and throb, and their eyes must remain downcast, and fixed upon their hands, which, scarlet with henna, lie motionless one on each knee. Malays, who have experienced this, tell me that it is very trying, and I can well believe it, the more so, since it is a point of honour for the man to try to catch an occasional glimpse of his fiancée out of the corner of his eyes, without turning his head a hair's breadth, and without appearing to move an eyelash. The bridegroom is conducted to the house of his bride, there to sit in state, by a band of his relations and friends, some of whom sing shrill verses from the Kurân, while others rush madly ahead, charging, retreating, capering, dancing, yelling, and hooting, brandishing naked weapons, and engaging in a most realistic sham fight, with the bride's relations and friends, who rush out of her compound to meet them, and do not suffer themselves to be routed until they have made a fine show of resistance. This custom, doubtless, has its origin in the fact that, in primitive states of society, a man must seek a wife at his risk and peril, for among the Sâkai in some of the wilder parts of the country, the girl is still placed upon an anthill, and ringed about by her relations, who do not suffer her fiancé to win her until his head has been broken in several places. The same feeling exists in Europe, as is witnessed by the antagonism displayed by the school-boy, and even the older and more sensible males of a family, to their would-be brother-in-law. It is the natural instinct of the man, to protect his women-folk from all comers, breaking out, as natural instincts are wont to do, in a hopelessly wrong place.

As I have said, the bride had been left in the inner apartments, there to await her call to the dais; and the preparations for the feast were in full swing, and the men were enjoying themselves in their own way while the women cooked, when, suddenly, a dull thud, as of some falling body, was heard within the house. The women rushed in, and found the little bride lying on the floor, with all the pretty garments, with which she had been bedecked, drenched in her own blood. A small clasp knife lay by her side, and there was a ghastly gash in her throat. The women lifted her up, and strove to staunch the bleeding, and as they fought to stay the life that was ebbing from her, the drone of the priests, and the beat of the drums, came to their ears from the men who were making merry without. Then suddenly the news of what had occurred spread among the guests, and the music died away, and was replaced by a babble of excited voices, all speaking at once.

The father of the girl rushed in, and, as she lay on the sleeping platform, still conscious, he asked her who had done this thing.

'It is my own handiwork,' she said.

'But wherefore, child of mine,' cried her mother, 'but wherefore dost thou desire to slay thyself?'

'I gazed upon my likeness in the mirror,' said the girl, speaking slowly and with difficulty, 'and I beheld that I was very hideous to look upon, so that it was not fitting that I should live. Therefore I did it.'

And until she died, about an hour later, this, and this only, was the explanation which she would give. The matter was related to me by the great up-country Chief, the Dâto’ Mahrâja Pĕrba, who said that he had never heard of any parallel case. I jestingly told him that he should be careful not to allow this deed to become a precedent, for there are many ugly women in his district, and if they all followed this girl's example, the population would soon have dwindled sadly. Later, when I learned the real reasons which led to this suicide, I was sorry that I had ever jested about it, for the girl's was a sad little story.

Some months before, a Pĕkan born Malay had come to the Jĕlai on a trading expedition, and had cast his eyes upon the girl. To her, he was all that the people of the surrounding villages were not. He walked with a swagger, wore his weapons and his clothes with an air that none but a Court-bred Malay knows how to assume, and was full of brave tales, which the elders of the village could only listen to with wonder and respect. As the brilliant form of Lancelot burst upon the startled sight of the Lady of Shalott, so did this man—an equally splendid vision in the eyes of this poor little up-country maid—come into her life, bringing with him hopes and desires, that she had never before dreamed of. Before so brave a wooer what could her little arts avail? As many better and worse women than she have done before her, she gave herself to him, thinking, thereby, to hold him in silken bonds, through which he might not break; but what was all her life to her, was merely a passing incident to him, and one day she learned that he had returned down stream. The idea of following him probably never even occurred to her, but, like others before her, she thought that the sun had fallen from heaven, because her night light had gone out. Her parents, who knew nothing of this intrigue, calmly set about making the arrangements for her marriage, a matter in which, of course, she would be the last person to be consulted. She must have watched these preparations with speechless agony, knowing that the day fixed for the marriage must be that on which her life would end, for she must long have resolved to die faithful to her false lover, though it was not until the very last moment that she summoned up sufficient courage to take her own life. That she ever did so is very marvellous. That act is one which is not only contrary to all natural instincts, but is, moreover, utterly opposed to the ideas which prevail among people of her race; and her sufferings must, indeed, have been intense, before this means of escape can have presented itself to her, even as a possibility. She must have been at once a girl of extraordinary strength and weakness: strength to have made the resolve, and, having made it, to fearlessly carry it into execution, dying with a lie on her lips, which should conceal her real reasons, and the fact of her rapidly approaching maternity; and weakness in that the burden laid upon her was greater than she could bear. Poor child, ignorant, yet filled with a terrible knowledge, false, yet faithful even unto death, strong in her weakness, with a marvellous strength, yet weak in her first fall.

AMONG THE FISHER FOLK

This is a land of a thousand beauties. Nature, as we see her in the material things which delight our eyes, is straight from the hand of God, unmarred by man's deforming, a marvellous creation of green growths and brilliant shades of colour, fresh, sweet, pure, an endless panorama of loveliness. But it is not only the material things which form the chief beauties of the land in which we dwell. The ever-varying lights of the Peninsula, and the splendid Malayan sky that arches over us are, in themselves, at once the crown of our glory, and the imparters of a fresh and changeful loveliness to the splendours of the earth. Our eyes are ever glutted with the wonders of the sky, and of the lights which are shed around us. From the moment when the dawn begins to paint its orange tints in the dim East, and later floods the vastness of the low-lying clouds with glorious dyes of purple and vermillion, and a hundred shades of colour, for which we have no name, reaching to the very summit of the heavens; on through the early morning hours, when the slanting rays of the sun throw long broad streaks of dazzlingly white light upon the waters of sea and river; on through the burning noonday, when the shadows fall black and sharp and circular, in dwarfed patches about our feet; on through the cooler hours of the afternoon, when the sun is a burning disc low down in the western sky, or, hiding behind a bank of clouds, throws wide-stretched arms of prismatic colour high up into the heavens; on through the hour of sunset, when all the world is a flaming blaze of gold and crimson; and so into the cool still night, when the moon floods us with a sea of light only one degree less dazzling than that of day, or when the thousand wonders of the southern stars gaze fixedly upon us from their places in the deep clear vault above our heads, and Venus casts a shadow on the grass; from dawn to dewy eve, from dewy eve to dawn, the lights of the Peninsula vary as we watch them steep us and all the world in glory, and half intoxicate us with their beauty.

But the sea is the best point or vantage from which to watch the glories of which I tell—speaking as I do in weak colourless words of sights and scenes which no human brush could ever hope to render, nor mortal poet dream of painting in immortal song—and if you would see them for yourself, and drink in their beauty to the full, go dwell among the Fisher Folk of the East Coast.

They are a rough, hard-bit gang, ignorant and superstitious beyond belief, tanned to the colour of mahogany by exposure to the sun, with faces scarred and lined by rough weather and hard winds. They are plucky and reckless, as befits men who go down to the sea in ships; they are full of resource, the results of long experience of danger, and constant practice in sudden emergencies, where a loss of presence of mind means a forfeiture of life. Their ways and all their dealings are bound fast by a hundred immutable customs, handed down through countless ages, which no man among them dreams of violating; and they have, moreover, that measure of romance attaching to them which clings to all men who run great risks, and habitually carry their lives in their hands.

From the beginning of November to the end of February the North-East monsoon whips down the long expanse of the China Sea, fenced as it is by the Philippines and Borneo on the one hand, and by Cochin China and Cambodia on the other, until it breaks in all its force and fury on the East Coast of the Peninsula. It raises breakers mountain high upon the bars at the river mouths, it dashes huge waves against the shore, or banks up the flooded streams as they flow seaward, until, on a calm day, a man may drink sweet water a mile out at sea. During this season the people of the coast are mostly idle, though they risk their lives and their boats upon the fishing banks on days when a treacherous calm lures them seaward, and they can rarely be induced to own that the monsoon has in truth broken, until the beaches have been strewn with driftwood from a dozen wrecks. They long for the open main when they are not upon it, and I have seen a party of Kĕlantan fishermen half drunk with joy at finding themselves dancing through a stormy sea in an unseaworthy craft on a dirty night, after a long period spent on the firm shore. 'It is indeed sweet,' they kept exclaiming—'it is indeed sweet thus once more to play with the waves!' For here as elsewhere the sea has its own peculiar strange fascination for those who are at once its masters, its slaves, and its prey.

When they have at last been fairly beaten by the monsoon, the fisher folk betake themselves to the scattered coast villages, which serve to break the monotonous line of jungle and shivering casuarina trees that fringe the sandy beach and the rocky headlands of the shore. Here under the cocoa-nut palms, amid chips from boats that are being repaired, and others that still lie upon the stocks, surrounded by nets, and sails, and masts, and empty crafts lying high and dry upon the beach out of reach of the tide, the fishermen spend the months of their captivity. Their women live here all the year round, labouring incessantly in drying and salting the fish which have been taken by the men, or pounding prawns into blâchan, that evil-smelling condiment which has been so ludicrously misnamed the Malayan Caviare. It needs all the violence of the fresh, strong, monsoon winds to even partially purge these villages of the rank odours which cling to them at the end of the fishing season; and when all has been done, the saltness of the sea air, the brackish water of the wells, and the faint stale smells emitted by the nets and fishing tackle still tell unmistakable tales of the one trade in which every member of these communities is more or less engaged.

The winds blow strong, and the rain falls heavily. The frogs in the marshes behind the village fill the night air with the croakings of a thousand mouths, and the little bull-frogs sound their deep see-saw note during all the hours of darkness. The sun is often hidden by the heavy cloud-banks, and a subdued melancholy falls upon the moist and steaming land. The people, whom the monsoon has robbed of their occupation, lounge away the hours, building boats, and mending nets casually and without haste or concentrated effort. Four months must elapse before they can again put to sea, so there is no cause for hurry. They are frankly bored by the life they have to lead between fishing season and fishing season, but they are a healthy-minded and withal a law-abiding people, who do little evil even when their hands are idle.

Then the monsoon breaks, and they put out to sea once more, stretching to their paddles, and shouting in chorus as they dance across the waves to the fishing grounds. During this season numerous ugly and uncleanly steamboats tramp up the coast, calling at all the principal ports for the cargoes of dried fish that find a ready market in Singapore, and thus the fisher folk have no difficulty in disposing of their takes. Prices do not rank high, for a hundredweight of fish is sold on the East Coast for about six shillings and sixpence of our money, but the profits of a season are more than sufficient to keep a fisherman and his family in decency during the months of his inactivity. The shares which are apportioned to the working hands in each crew, and to the owners of the crafts and nets, are all determined by ancient custom. The unwritten law is clearly recognised and understood by all concerned, and thus the constant disputes which would otherwise inevitably arise are avoided. Custom—Aädat—is the fetish of the Malay. Before it even the Hukum Sharä, the Divine Law of the Prophet, is powerless, in spite of the professed Muhammadanism of the people. 'Let our children die rather than our customs,' says the vernacular proverb, and for once an old saw echoes the sentiment of a race.

The average monthly earnings of a fisherman is about sixteen shillings ($8), and though to our ideas this sounds but a poor return for all the toil and hardship he must endure, and the many risks and dangers which surround his avocation, to a simple people it is all-sufficient.

A fisherman can live in comfort on some three shillings a month, and wife and little ones can, therefore, be supported, and money saved against the close season, if a man be prudent. The owners of boats and nets receive far larger sums, but none the less they generally take an active part in the fishing operations. From one end of the coast to the other, the capitalist who owns many crafts, and lives upon the income derived from their hire, is almost unknown.

The fish crowd the shallow shoal waters, and move up and down the coast, during the whole of the open season, in great schools acres in extent. Occasionally their passage may be marked from afar by the flight of hungry sea-fowl hovering and flittering above them; the white plumage of the restless birds glints and flashes in the sunlight as they wheel and dip and plunge downwards, or soar upwards again with their prey. I have seen a school of fish beating the surface of the quiet sea into a thousand glistening splashes, as in vain they attempted to escape their restless pursuers, who, floating through the air above them, or plunging madly down, belaboured the water with their wings, and kept up a deafening chorus of gleeful screamings.

These seas carry almost everything that the salt ocean waters can produce. Just as the forests of the Peninsula teem with a life that is strangely prodigal in its profusion, and in the infinite variety of its forms, so do the waters of the China sea defy the naturalist to classify the myriad wonders of their denizens. The shores are strewn with shells of all shapes and sizes, which display every delicate shade of prismatic colour, every marvel of dainty tracery, every beauty of curve and spiral that the mind of man can conceive. The hard sand which the tide has left is pitted with tiny holes, the lairs of a million crabs and sea insects. The beaches are covered with a wondrous diversity of animal and vegetable growths thrown up and discarded by the tide. Seaweed of strange varieties, and of every fantastic shape and texture, the round balls of fibrous grass, like gigantic thistledowns, which scurry before the light breeze, as though endued with life, the white oval shells of the cuttle-fish, and the shapeless hideous masses of dead medusæ, all lie about in extricable confusion on the sandy shores of the East Coast.

In the sea itself all manner of fish are found; the great sharks, with their shapeless gashes of mouth set with the fine keen teeth; the sword-fishes with their barred weapons seven and eight feet long; the stinging ray, shaped like a child's kite, with its rasping hide and its two sharp bony prickers set on its long tail; the handsome tĕnggîri, marked like a mackerel, the first of which when taken are a royal perquisite on the Coast; the little smelts and red-fish; the thousand varieties that live among the sunken rocks, and are brought to the surface by lines six fathoms long; the cray-fish, prawns, and shrimps; and the myriad forms of semi-vegetable life that find a home in the tepid tropic sea, all these, and many more for which we have no name, live and die and prey upon each other along the eastern shores of the Peninsula.

Here may be seen the schools of porpoises—which the Malays name 'the racers'—plunging through the waves, or leaping over one another with that ease of motion, and that absence of all visible effort, which gives so faint an idea of the pace at which they travel. Yet when a ship is tearing through the waters at the rate of four hundred miles a day, the porpoises play backwards and forwards across the ploughing forefoot of the bow, and find no difficulty in holding their own. Here, too, is that monster fish which so nearly resembles the shark that the Malays call it by that name, with the added title of 'the fool.' It lies almost motionless about two fathoms below the surface, and when the fisher folk spy it, one of their number drops noiselessly over the side, and swims down to it. Before this is done it behoves a man to look carefully, and to assure himself that it is indeed the Fool, and not his brother of the cruel teeth who lies down below through the clear water. A mistake on this point means a sudden violent commotion on the surface, a glimpse of an agonised human face mutely imploring aid, the slow blending of certain scarlet patches of fluid with the surrounding water, and then a return to silence and peace, and the calm of an unruffled sea. But if it is indeed the Fool that floats so idly below them, the boatmen know that much meat will presently be theirs. The swimmer cautiously approaches the great lazy fish, which makes no effort to avoid him. Then the gently agitated fingers of a human hand are pressed against the monster's side just below the fins, and fish and man rise to the surface, the latter tickling gently, the former placid and delighted by the novel sensation. The swimmer then hitches one hand on to the boat in order to support himself, and continues the gentle motion of the fingers of his other hand, which still rests under the fin of his prey. The great fish seems too intoxicated with pleasure to move. It presses softly against the swimmer, and the men in the boat head slowly for the shore. When the shallow water is reached every weapon on board is plunged into the body of the Fool, and he is cut up at leisure.

Cray-fish also are caught by tickling all along the coast. The instrument used in this case is not the human hand, but a small rod, called a jai, to the end of which a rattan noose is fixed. The work is chiefly entrusted to little children, who paddle into the shallow water at points where the cray-fish are feeding, and gently tickle the itching prominent eyeballs of their victims. The irritation in these organs must be constant and excessive, for the cray-fish rub them gently against any object that presents itself, and when they feel the soothing friction of the rattan noose they lie motionless, paralysed with pleasure. The noose is gradually slipped over the protruding eyes, when it is drawn taut, and thus the great prawns are landed. Even when the strain has been taken too soon, and a cray-fish has escaped with one eyeball wrenched from its socket, it not uncommonly occurs that the intolerable irritation in its other eye drives it back once more to the rattan noose, there to have the itching allayed by the gentle friction.

Jelly-fish, too, abound on the East Coast. They come aboard in the nets, staring with black beady eyes from out the shapeless masses of their bodies, looking in the pale moonlight like the faces of lost souls, showing on the surface of the bottomless pit, casting despairing arms around their heads in impotent agony. The water which has sluiced over their slimy bodies is charged with irritating properties, such as drive a man to tear the very flesh from his bones in a fruitless attempt to allay the horrible itching. When the water dries, the irritation ceases, but at sea, and at night, when the dew falls like rain, and one is drenched to the skin by water from the nets, it is not easy for anything to become dry. Therefore one must suffer patiently till the boat puts back again at dawn.

These are some of the creatures which share with the Fisher Folk the seas of the East Coast, and hundreds of devices are used to capture them. Nets of all shapes and sizes, seine nets with their bobbing floats, bag nets of a hundred kinds, drop nets, and casting nets. Some are set all night, and are liberally sprinkled with bait. Some are worked round schools of fish by a single boat, which flies in its giant circle, propelled by a score of paddles dripping flame from the phosphorescence with which each drop of the Eastern sea is charged. Some are cautiously spread by the men in one boat, according to directions signalled to them by a second, from the side of which a diver hangs by one arm, listening intently to the motion of the fish, and judging with marvellous accuracy the direction which they are taking. Lines of all sorts, hooks of every imaginable shape, all the tricks and devices, which have been learned by hundreds of years of experience on the fishing grounds, are employed by the people of the East Coast to swell their daily and nightly takes of fish.

In the sheltered water of the Straits of Malacca, huge traps are constructed of stakes driven into the sea-bottom, and in these the vast majority of the fish are caught. But on the East Coast such a means of taking fish is forbidden by nature. A single day of monsoon wind would be sufficient to destroy and scatter far and wide the work of months, and so the Fisher Folk whose lot is cast by the waters of the China Sea, display more skill in their netting and lining than any other Peninsula Malays, for on these alone can they depend for the fish by which they live.

Their boats are of every size, but the shape is nearly the same in each case, from the tiny kôlek which can only hold three men, to the great pûkat dâlam or seine-boat, which requires more than a score of paddlers to work her. They are all made of chĕngal, one of the hardest and toughest woods that is yielded by the jungles of the Peninsula. They all rise slightly at the stern and at the bows; they all are decked in with wide laths of bamboo; they all carry a mast which may be lowered or raised at will, and which seems to be altogether too tall and heavy for safety; they all fly under a vast spread of yellow palm-mat sail, the sight of which, as it fills above you, and you lie clutching the bulwark on the canting boat, while half the crew are hanging by ropes over the windward side, fairly takes your breath away; and all are so rigged that if taken aback the mast must part or the boat be inevitably capsized. But the Fisher Folk know the signs of the heavens as no others may know them, and when danger is apprehended the mast is lowered, the sail furled, and the boat headed for shore.

The real danger is when men are too eagerly engaged in fishing to note the signals which the skies are making to them. A party of Kĕlantan fisher folk nearly came by their death a year or two ago by reason of such carelessness. One of them is a friend of mine, and he told me the tale. Eight of them put to sea in a jâlak to troll for fish, and ran before a light breeze, with two score of lines trailing glistening spoon-baits in their wake. The fish were extraordinarily active, itself a pretty sure sign that a storm was not far off, but the men were too busy pulling in the lines, knocking the fish from the hooks with their wooden mallets, and trailing the lines astern again, to spare a glance at the sky or the horizon. Suddenly came the gust, striking, as do the squalls of the tropics, like the flat of a giant's hand. The mast was new and sound, the boat canted quickly, the water rose to the line of the bulwarks, paused, shivered, and then in a deluge plunged into the hold. A cry from the crew, a loud but futile shriek of directions from the owner, a splashing of released fish, a fighting flood of water, and the eight fishermen found themselves struggling in the arms of an angry sea.

The boat, keel uppermost, rocked uneasily on the waves, and the men, casting off their scant garments, made shift to swim to her, and climb up her slippery dipping side. The storm passed over them, a line of tropic rain, beating a lashing tattoo upon the white-tipped troubled waters; then a blinding downpour stinging on the bare brown backs of the shivering fishermen; and lastly a black shadow, lowering above a foam-flecked sea, driving quickly shorewards. Then came the sun, anxious to show its power after its temporary defeat. It beat pitilessly on the bare bodies of the men huddled together on the rocking keel of the boat. First it warmed them pleasantly, and then it scorched and flayed them, aided as it was by the fierce reflection thrown back from the salt waters. For a day and a night they suffered all the agonies of exposure in the tropics. Burning heat by day, chill airs at night, stiffening the uncovered limbs of the fishermen, who now half mad with hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, watched with a horrid fascination the great fins, which every now and then showed above the surface of the waters, and told them only too plainly that the sharks expected soon to get a meal very much to their liking.

On the second day Che’ Leh, the owner of the boat, urged his fellows to attempt to right her by a plan which he explained to them, but at first the fear of the sharks held them motionless. At length hunger and thirst aiding Che’ Leh's persuasions, they dropped off the boat, making a great splashing to scare the sharks, and after hours of cruel toil, for which their exhausted condition fitted them but ill, they succeeded in loosening the mast, and releasing the palm-leaf sail. Long pauses were necessary at frequent intervals, for the men were very weak. At last the sail floated upwards under the boat, and by a great effort the castaways succeeded in spreading it taut, so that the boat was half supported by it. Then, all pushing from one side, gaining such a foothold as the sail afforded them, they succeeded, after many straining efforts, in righting her. Slowly and painfully they baled her out, and then lay for many hours too inert to move.

Late on the third day they reached the shore, but they had been carried many miles down the coast to a part where they were unknown. The eight naked men presented themselves at a village and asked for food and shelter, but the people feared that they were fugitives from some Râja's wrath, and many hours elapsed before they received the aid of which they stood so sorely in need.

The beliefs and superstitions of the Fisher Folk would fill many volumes. They believe in all manner of devils and local sprites. They fear greatly the demons that preside over animals, and will not willingly mention the names of birds or beasts while at sea. Instead, they call them all chĕweh—which, to them, signifies an animal, though to others it is meaningless, and is supposed not to be understanded of the beasts. To this word they tack on the sound which each beast makes in order to indicate what animal is referred to; thus the pig is the grunting chĕweh, the buffalo the chĕweh that says 'uak,' and the snipe the chĕweh that cries 'kek-kek.' Each boat that puts to sea has been medicined with care, many incantations and other magic observances having been had recourse to, in obedience to the rules which the superstitious people have followed for ages. After each take the boat is 'swept' by the medicine man, with a tuft of leaves prepared with mystic ceremonies, which is carried at the bow for the purpose. The omens are watched with exact care, and if they be adverse no fishing boat puts to sea that day. Every act in their lives is regulated by some regard for the demons of the sea and air, and yet these folk are nominally Muhammadans, and, according to that faith, magic and sorcery, incantations to the spirits, and prayers to demons are all unclean things forbidden to the people. But the Fisher Folk, like other inhabitants of the Peninsula, are Malays first and Muhammadans afterwards. Their religious creed goes no more than skin deep, and affects but little the manner of their daily life.

All up and down the coast, from Sĕdĕli in Johor to the islands near Sĕnggôra, the Fisher Folk are found during the open season. Fleets of smacks leave the villages for the spots along the shore where fish are most plentiful, and for eight months in the year these men live and sleep in their boats. The town of Kuâla Trĕnggânu, however, is the headquarters of the fishing trade, as indeed it is of all the commercial enterprise on this side of the Peninsula. At the point where the Trĕnggânu river falls into the sea, a sandy headland juts out, forming a little bay, to which three conical rocky hills make a background, relieving the general flatness of the coast. In this bay, and picturesquely grouped about the foot of these hills, the thatched houses of the capital, and the cool green fruit groves cluster closely. Innumerable fishing crafts lie at anchor, or are beached along the shore; gaily-dressed natives pass hither and thither, engrossed in their work or play; and the little brown bodies of the naked children fleck the yellow sands. Seen across the dancing waves, and with the appearance of motion which, in this steaming land, the heat-haze gives to even inanimate objects, this scene is indescribably pretty, shining and alive.

But at dawn the prospect is different. The background is the same, but the colour of the scene is less intense, though the dark waves have rosy lights in them reflected from the ruddy sky of the dawn. A slowly paling fire shines here and there upon the shore, and the cool land breeze blows seaward. Borne upon the wind come stealing out a hundred graceful, noiseless fishing smacks. The men aboard them are cold and sleepy. They sit huddled up in the stern, with their sârongs drawn high about their shoulders, under the shadow of the palm-leaf sail, which shows dark above them in the faint light of early morning. The only sound is the whisper of the wind in the rigging, and the song of the forefoot as it drives the water before it in little curving ripples. And so the fleet floats out and out, and presently is lost on the glowing eastern sky-line. At sundown the boats come racing back, heading for the sinking sun, borne on the evening wind, which sets steadily shorewards, and at about the same hour the great seine-boats, with their crews of labouring paddlers, beat out to sea.

So live they, so die they, year in and year out. Toiling and enduring, with no hope or wish for change of scene. Delighting in such simple pleasures as their poor homes afford; surrounded by beauties of nature, which they lack the soul to appreciate; and yet experiencing that keen enjoyment which is born of dancing waves, of pace, of action, and of danger, that thrilling throb of the red blood through the veins, which, when all is said and done, makes up more than half of the joy of living.

It was not always so with them, for within the memory of old men upon the Coast, the Fisher Folk were once pirates to a man. The last survivor of those who formed the old lawless bands was an intimate friend of mine own. When I last saw him, a day or two before his death in 1891, he begged that I would do him one final act of friendship by supplying him with a winding sheet, that he might go decently to his grave under the sods and the spear-grass, bearing thither a token of the love I bore him. It was a good shroud of fine white calico bought in the bazaar, and it cost more than a dollar. But I found it very willingly, for I remembered that I was aiding to remove from the face of the earth, and to lay in his quiet resting-place, the last Pirate on the East Coast.

THE STORY OF BÂYAN THE PAROQUET

Life—meaning the life which animates the bodies of other people—is not priced high by the natives of the East Coast; but eight or nine years ago, it was held even more lightly than it is at present. Murder was frequently done for the most trivial causes, and a Malay often drew a knife, when an Englishman would have been content to drop a damn. Young Chiefs were wont to take a life or two from pure galeté de cœur, merely to show that they were beginning to feel their feet, and were growing up brave and manly as befitted their descent. Such doings were not regarded altogether with disfavour by the boy's parents,—for, in a rude state of society, a Chief must be feared before he is loved, if his days are to be long in the land,—and some of the older men encouraged their sons to make a kill, much in the same spirit which animated parents in Europe half a century ago, when they put a finishing touch to the education of their children by sending them on the Grand Tour. Some fathers went even further than this, and Râja Haji Hamid once told me that he killed his first man when he was a child of eleven or twelve, his victim being a very thin, miserable-looking Chinaman, upon whom his father bade him try his 'prentice hand. The Chinaman had done no evil, but he was selected because he was feeble and decrepit, and would show no fight even if attacked by a small boy with a kris. Râja Haji told me that he botched the killing a good deal, but that he hacked the life out of the Chinaman at last, though the poor wretch, like Charles II., took an unconscionable time adying. Death to this Chinaman must have only been one degree less unpleasant than it was to the man who

The story of Bâyan the Paroquet, which I am about to tell, is another rather striking instance of the utter impunity with which the son of a Chief may take life, under the rule of a Native Prince in an Independent Malay State.

I first met Bâyan the Paroquet some six months before his death, when I was making my way across the Peninsula, viâ the Slim Mountains, in 1887. We were camped for the night at a spot in the jungle on the Pêrak side of the range, in a natural refuge, which has probably sheltered wayfarers in these forests ever since primitive man first set foot in the Peninsula. The place is called Bâtu Sâpor—the Stone Lean-to Hut—in the vernacular, and the name is a descriptive one. It is situated on the banks of the Brêseh, a little babbling stream which runs down to the Slim. The banks are high and shelving, but, on the top, they are flat, and it is here that the gigantic overhanging granite boulder stands, which gives the place its name. It is of enormous size, and is probably deeply embedded in the ground, for large trees have taken root and grow upon its upper surface. It projects some thirty feet over the flat bank, and then, shelving suddenly away to the ground, forms a stone roof, under which a score of men can camp with ease. The Pahang Prince, with whom I was travelling, unlike most of the men of that breed, was a very nervous person, and it was not without much persuasion that I had succeeded in inducing him to join me in my camp under the shadow of the great rock. He feared that it would topple over and crush us, nor was he completely reassured until Saiyid Jasin—the chief of his followers—a shrunken, wizened little man of many wiles, had propped the stone up with a slender sapling, over which he had duly recited certain magic incantations.

My attention was specially attracted to Bâyan the Paroquet, because he was the man who was told off to shampoo me after my march. He was a man of about forty years of age, thickset and large-limbed for a Malay, with a round bullet-shaped head, and a jolly smiling face.

Now, Bâyan the Paroquet was what is technically termed a Pĕng-lîpor Lâra—or 'Soother of Cares,'—a class of men which is fast dying out in the Peninsula, as other mediæval landmarks become effaced. These people are simply the wandering bards and minstrels, who find their place in an Independent Malay State as naturally as did their prototypes in the countries of Europe during the Middle Ages. They learn by rote some old-world tale, which has been transmitted by word of mouth through countless generations, and they wander from village to village, singing it for pay to the unlettered people, to whom these songs and stories represent the only literature which comes within their experience. Such minstrels are greatly loved by the villagers, who hold them in high honour, giving them hearty welcome, and the name by which they are known in the vernacular bears witness to the joy which they bring with them whithersoever they go. Bâyan's real name was Mat Sâman, but we always called him Bâyan—which means the Paroquet—because the tale which he sang told of the wonderful doings of a prince, who was transformed into a fabulous bird called the Bûrong Âgot, and whose attendants were the Paroquet and the Pied-robin (Mûrai). As he sat kneading me, as a baker kneads dough, he began to sing, and, that evening, and for many nights after, he sang his song to the Râja and myself, to the huge delight of our people.

There was also in camp at this time a boy named To’ Mûda Long, who was the eldest son of one of the great up-country Chiefs. He was returning from Singapore with the Râja, to whom he had fled after some escapade of his had excited the paternal wrath. He was a nice-looking youngster, with a slight lisp, and a manner as soft as floss-silk, and he was always smartly dressed in pretty Malay garments. We travelled together for more than three months, and I got to know him pretty well, and took something of a liking to him. I knew, of course, that his manner to his own people was not always as gentle as that which he assumed when in the presence of the Râja or of myself, and during our progress through his father's district I heard many tales of his ill doings. To these, however, I attached but little importance, for Malays are very apt to malign a young Chief who, as they say, is born like a tiger cub, with teeth and claws, and may always be expected to do evil. Nevertheless, it would certainly never have occurred to me at that time that this mild-eyed, soft-spoken, silken-mannered, rather melancholy young man was capable of committing a peculiarly cruel, deliberate, and cold-blooded murder. Until one begins to understand them, one's Malay friends always seem to be breaking out in some new and unexpected place, to the intense mortification and surprise of people who attempt to judge Oriental character from a purely European standpoint.

The Râja and I journeyed through Pahang with great state and pageantry, our party increasing in bulk as we went along, after the manner of a snowball. The Râja and I were accommodated on a huge raft or floating house, and a perfect flotilla of boats accompanied us. At length, after many days spent in floating down the beautiful Pahang river, with the cool ripple of the water in our ears, and the ever-changing views to delight our eyes, we came in sight of Pĕkan, and, that night, we tied up about half a mile below the capital, at the landing-place which belonged to my travelling companion.

Thereafter followed negotiations, and interviews—made terrible by unearthly sweetmeats—much talk, and long waiting. Endless delays on the one side, stubborn patience that refused to be tired out on the other; and, as dawn was breaking on a certain Easter Sunday, I found myself, with a promise of a Treaty in my pocket, making my way out of the mouth of the river en route for Singapore. A fortnight later I was back at Pĕkan, to the no small disgust of my friend the Sultân and his people, but now I had quarters assigned to me in the royal village, and accordingly I saw but little of the Râja with whom I had formerly travelled, and the people who had accompanied him from the interior.

One day, about noon, I was aroused from sleep,—for, at Pĕkan, when first I lived there, all business was transacted at night, and no one of standing, who respected himself, thought of going to bed before eight o'clock in the morning, or of getting up till four in the afternoon. For Malays to wake one means that there is trouble, or that something untoward has occurred; for, in the Native States, slumber is respected,—as it ought to be, seeing how hard at times it is to come by,—and the European practice of being called in the morning, is a barbarous habit with which Malays have no sympathy. On this occasion there was a good reason for waking me, as news had just come in that To’ Mûda Long had killed Bâyan the Paroquet, and as this had occurred in the compound of the Râja, with whom I had formerly travelled, and as he and the Sultân were on bad terms, there was room for fear that serious political complications would ensue. I, therefore, had occasion to inquire into the details of this murder, and this is what I learned.

To’ Mûda Long, Bâyan the Paroquet, and the rest of the up-country natives, who had accompanied us down river to Pĕkan, remained in the Râja's enclosure to act as his body-guard and boat crew, and they had not been long at Pĕkan before the girls of the town began to send challenges to them, for Malay women dearly love a change, and these men were all strangers newly come among them. Nothing loth, the Râja's followers plunged hotly into the love intrigues which formed the principal interest in life to the people of Pĕkan, and the usual jealousies began to cause quarrels among them. Now, it chanced that To’ Mûda Long and Bâyan both desired the same girl, and she, it would seem, preferred the Paroquet to the young Chieftain. Perhaps, his good voice, and the skill with which he sang the Song of the Bûrong Âgot, turned the balance in his favour, for Malay women love to be amused, and often favour those who are willing and able to amuse them. The girl was well born, and had many relatives, so To’ Mûda Long could not make an open scandal by attempting to seize her by force, but his desire for her was hot in his breast, and he decided that Bâyan the Paroquet should die.

It only remained to seek a pretext for a quarrel, and this was easily found. In the afternoon the Râja's followers were accustomed to play sêpak râga,—a game which consists in kicking a round basket-work ball, made of rattan, from one to the other, without letting it fall to the ground. When it became dark, the players adjourned to the Râja's bâlai or hall, and some of them forgot to let down their trousers, which had been hitched up above their knees to leave their legs free while playing. Bâyan was one of the older men among the Râja's followers, and he, therefore, checked these youths; for, to enter a Râja's bâlai with bared knees is an act of rudeness. To’ Mûda Long knew the custom, and, of course, his knees were covered, but when Bâyan spoke he leapt up and said:

'Arrogant one! Dost thou alone know the custom of kings? Thou art over clever at teaching men!'

And, drawing his kris he made a murderous assault on Bâyan. The latter whipped his kris out, too, and it would have gone ill with To’ Mûda Long, for Bâyan was a strong man and knew the use of his weapon, had not the older men, who were present, interfered to separate the combatants.

Next morning, Bâyan arose betimes, and, taking the long bamboos, in which water is stored and carried, he went down to the river to have his morning bath, and to fetch water for his house. He must have attached but little importance to the incident of the previous afternoon, for he went to the river unarmed, which was unusual in those days even for men who had no especial cause of quarrel. A Malay often judges the courage of his fellows by whether or no they are careful to be never separated from their weapons, and Europeans who, in humble imitation of Gordon, prefer to go about unarmed, make a great mistake, since a Malay is apt to interpret such action as being dictated by cowardice. Bâyan bathed in the river, filled his bamboos, and began to carry them to his house; but To’ Mûda Long had been watching his opportunity, and he and two of his followers, all fully armed, had taken up a position in the middle of the path, by which Bâyan must pass back to his house.

'Thou wast over arrogant to me last night,' said To’ Mûda Long as Bâyan approached, 'and now I will repay thee!'

'Have patience, To’ Mûda, have patience,' said Bâyan. 'Thy servant did not speak to thee; it was the boys who were unmannerly, and thy servant, being an old man, did reprove them!'

'It is not for the like of thee to reprove men, and the said boys are my people, the sons of my loins. I will cover their shame!' said To’ Mûda Long, for the wolf was determined to pick a quarrel with the lamb, bleat he never so wisely.

'Have patience, To’ Mûda!' again cried poor Bâyan, but the words were hardly out of his mouth before To’ Mûda Long struck at him with his spear, but missed him. Then, as Bâyan retreated step by step, defending himself with the clumsy bamboo from the deft spear thrusts, no more words passed between them.

At last the spear went home. 'Bâsah! Bâsah! I have wetted thee!' cried To’ Mûda Long, and he went in at his enemy, kris in hand, Bâyan beating him about the head with the now empty bamboo. When he got to close quarters, the deed was soon done, and the body of Bâyan the Paroquet, with seventeen rending wounds upon it, lay stark and hideously staring at the pure morning sky.

There was loud talk of blood-money, and equally loud talk of reprisals, but nothing came of it; and though I often meet To’ Mûda Long, who is as soft spoken and as gentle in his manners as ever, Bâyan's death was never revenged, and the fact that he ever lived and sang is now well-nigh forgotten, even by those who knew him, and loved to hear his tales.

A TALE OF A THEFT