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JOURNAL 
mie AlIS BRANCH 


(S pel Mad Gls ew 


MerAl ASIATIC SOCIETY. 


JUNE, 1881. 


Peo ISHED HALF-YHARLY. 


SINGAPORE: 
PRINTED AT THE GOVERNMENT PrintTING OFFICE. 


1881. 


—— 


AGENTS OF THE SOCIETY: 


London & America, .. Tribner & Co. | Paris,...Ernust Leroux & Crk. 


PHBE OF CUNTENTS. 


——_—_ oo» 2a 


List of Members, 
Proceedings, General Meeting, 8th March, 1880, 
Do., do., 14th September, 1880, 
0.. Annual General Meeting, 4th February, 1881, 
Council’s Annual Report for 1880, 


Treasurer's Report for 1880, 


Some Account of the Mining Districts of Lower Pérak, by 


J. Errington de la Croiz, 
The Folklore of the Malays, by W. HF. Maawell, 
Notes on the Rainfall of Singapore, by J. J. L. Wheatley, 


Journal of a Voyage through the Straits of Malacca on an 


Expedition to ‘the Molucca Islands, by Ca ee Walter 


Caulfield Lennon, 


Sketch of the Career of the Jate James Ricuarpson 


Logan, by J. Turnbull Thorson, 


Memorandum on the Various Tribes inhabiting Penang 
and Province Wellesley, by J. RB. Logan, 


are 


IOBUS 
peRAITS BRANCH 


OF THE 


ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 


PATRON: 


His Excellency Sir Freprertck Atoystus WELD, K.c.M.G. 


COUNCIL FOR 1881. 


The Hon’ble Cecii Crementri Suirn, c.M.c., President. 
E. Breser, Esquire, uu.v., Vice-President, Singapore. 
G. W. Lavino, Esquire, Vice-President, Penang. 

F. A. SwerrennamM, Esquire, Honorary Secretary. 
Epwin Korx, Esquire, Honorary Treasurer. 

N. B. Dennys, Esquire, Pr. D., \ 

W. Kron, Esquire, 

C. Srrinerr, Esquire. Councillors. . 

W. A. Picxentne, Esquire, 


Beyvert Petr, Esquire. 


vi MEMBERS FOR 1881, 


Apamson, Mr. W. 
Anson, Mr. A. 
Armstrong, Mr. A. 


BauMGaARTEN, Mr. C. 
Bentiey, Mr. H. E. 
Bernarp, Mr. F. G. 
Biees, Revd. L. C. 
Brecu, Mr. E. W. 
Brrou, Mr. J. K. 
Bonp, The Hon’ble I. §. 
Bovuttses, Mr. F. R. 
Brown, Mr. D. 
Brown, Mr. L. C. 
Bruce, Mr. Rost. R. 
Brusset, Mr. J. 
BurKkinsyaw, Mr. J. 


Careruy, Mr. T. 

Cavenacu, General OrFEuR 
Cornetius, Mr. B. M. A. 
Curr, Mr. J. C. 


Datmann, Mr. C. B. 
Daty, Mr. D. D. 
Dentson, Mr. N. 
Doveras, Mr. B. 
Doytz, Mr. P. 

Durr, Mr. A. 

Dtnuop, Major S., B.a. 
Dunuop, Mr. C. 
Dounuop, Mr. C. J. T. 


Emmerson, Mr. C. 
Everett, Mr. A. Harr 


Favre, Revd. L’ Abbé (Hono- 
rary Member.) 

Frreuson, Mr. A. M., Jr. 

Frsta, The Chevalier 

Frank, Mr. H. 

Fraser, Mr. J. 


GILFILLAN, Mr. S. 
Guinz, Mr. C. 
Gomes, Revd. W. H. 


r 


GranamM, The Hon’ble James 
Gray, Mr. A. 


Hervey, The Hon'ble D. F. A. 

Herwie, Mr. H. 

Hewertson, Mr. H. 

delat Woes 15 (Ce 

Hore, Mr. W. 

Hoses, The Ven’ble Archdeacon. 
G. F. 

Huuretr, Mr. R. W. 


IpraHiM BIN ABDULLAH, Mr. 
Innes, Mr. J. 
Irvine, The Hon’ble C. J. 


Jaco, Colonel J. 

Joaquim, Mr. J. P. 

Jonor, H. H. The Maharaja 
of, (Honorary Member.) 


Kenopine, Mr. F. 
Ker, Mr. T. Rawson 
Kywnerstey, Mr. C. W.S. 


Lames, The Hon'ble J. 
Lampert, Mr. G. R. 
Lampert, Mr. J. R. 
Leecu, Mr. H. W. C. 
Lercester, Mr. A. W. M. 
Logan, Mr. D. 

Low, Mr. Huan, c.M.c. 


Maack, Mr. H. F. 
Mackay, Revd. J. ABERIGH 
MacLaverty, Mr. G. 
Man, General H. 
MawnsFIeLp, Mr. G. 
Maxwett, Sir Perer Benson 
Maxwett, Mr. F. 
Maxwe.t, Mr. Ropr. W. 
Maxwey, Mr. W. E. 
Mixuivi0-Mactay, Baron, 
(Honorary Member.) 
Miuurr, Mr. James 
Mowamep BIn Masoon, Mr. 


MEMBERS ror 1881. Vil 


MonaMep Satp, Mr. | Sxinver, The Hon’ble A. M. 
Monry, Mr. O. | Sous, Mr. T. 
| Sriven, Mr. R. G. 
Noronua, Mr. H. L. SyED ABDULLAH BIN OMAR AL 
eee Vr PP. JuNIED, Mr. 
| Syzep MonAaMED BIN AL Sa- 
O’Brten, Mr. H. A. | aorr, Mr. 
Orp, General Sir Harry | Syers, Mr. H.C. 
St.GEORGE | Symes, Mr. R. L. 
PateRrave, Mr. Girrorp, (Ho- 
. norary Member.) Panpor, Mr As 
Earner. W. FE. B. Taw Kru Cuene, Mr. 
PeruaM, Revd. J., (Honorary | Payvior, Mr. J, Ee: 
Member.) | Tomson, Mr. J. T. 
| Totson, Mr. G. P. 
Reap, Mr. W. H. | TRracustEr, Mr. H. 
Remé, Mr. G. A. TreacuEeR, The Hon’ble W. H. 
Riny, Mr. Epmonp | Teenine, Vr. C. 
hitter, Mr. E. Trupner & Co., Messrs. 


oss, Mr. J. D., Jr. 
Rowe 1, Dr. T. I. 
| Vauenan, Mr. H. C. 
Sapawak, H. H. The Raja of, | Vermonz, Mr. J. M. B. 
(Honorary Member.) | 
Scuaatss, Mr. M. 


: _ Bini. Watker, Lieut. R. 8. F. 
Ma DL EE Wueattey, Mr. J. J. L. 


ScHoMBuRGK, Mr. C. Wyrwneken, Mr. R. 
SERGEL, Mr. V. 


SHELFORD, The Hon’ble Tuomas | ZEMKE, Mr. P. 


There are also 16 subscribers in London who obtain the Journal 
through Messrs. Tripyer & Co., but their names are not known in 
Singapore. 


vil 


PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
GENERAL MEETINGS 
OF THE 
STRAITS BRANCH 
OF THE 


ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 


ORDINARY MEETINGS 
HELD AT THE 


veda LS belaveJeu 


MONDAY, 8tx MARCH, 1880.. 
PRESENT: 
The Ven’ble Archdeacon G. F. Host, u.a., President. 
F. A. Swetrennam, Esquire, Honorary Secretary. 
G. A. René, Esquire. 
and 
Several Members and Visitors. 

The Minutes of the last Meeting are read and confirmed. 

Mr. A. Hart Evererr and Dr. Sourrnpro Mouwun Tagore are, 
on the recommendation of the Couneil, duly elected Members of 
the Society. 

A paper on the Bornean Guliga, by Mr. A. Hart Everert, is 
read by the Honorary Secretary. 

Mr. G. P. Touson reads a paper on Achin. 

The Honorary Secretary gives a description of Malayan and 
other weapons. 


The Meeting closes with an expression of thanks to Mr. G. P. 
Touson and Mr. F. A. Swetrenyam. 


PROCEEDINGS. 1x 


TUESDAY, l4rn SEPTEMBER, 1880. 


PRESENT : 


His Excellency Sir Frepertcx A. WELD, k.c.M.G., Patron. 
The Ven’ble Archdeacon G. F. Hosr, m.a., President. 
FP. A. SwerrenuamM, Esquire, Honorary Secretary. 
E. Korx, Esquire, Honorary Treasurer. 
K. Brewer, Esquire, Lu.p. 
N. B. Denyys, Esquire, Pu. D. 
and 
Several Members and Visitors. 


The Minutes of the last Meeting are read and confirmed. 


The President reads a Paper on the Ruins of Bord Budur, in the 
Island of Java, a large number of Plates of these ruins having 
recently been presented to the Society by the Government of the 
Hague. 


The Honorary Secretary reads a Paper, by Mr. A. Harr 
Everett, on the Caves of Borneo. 

Dr. Denwys asks the Assistance of Members in forming a Cata- 
logue of Works dealing with Malayan History, Geography and 
Literature. | 


His Excellency the Governor proposes a vote of thanks to the 
President for his interesting Paper, which is warmly carried. 


The following gentlemen, recommended by the Council, are 
elected Members of the Society :— 
Major-General Sir Harry S1.GeorGe ORD, K.C.M.G., C.B. 
General H. May. 
Mr. G. Lavino. 
Mr. H. Franx. 
Mr. H. L. Noronua. 


The Meeting separates. 


x PROCEEDINGS. 


ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 


HELD 
(by the courtesy of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce ) 
AT THE 
SINGAPORE EXCHANGE 
ON 
FRIDAY, tHe 4th FEBRUARY, 1881. 


PRESENT : 
The Ven’ble Archdeacon G. F. Hoss, m.a., President. 
i. A. Swerrennam, Esquire, Honorary Secretary. 
Epwiwn Koerx, Esquire, Honorary Treasurer. 
EH. Brezper, Esquire, 11.v. 
W. Krouy, Esquire. 
A. Durr, Esquire. 
T, CareruL, Hsquire. 

and 

Numerous Members and Visitors. 


The Minutes of the last Meeting are read and confirmed. 


The President explaims the object of the present Meeting. 


The following gentlemen, recommended by the Council, are 
~ elected Members :— 

General OrreuR CaVENAGH. 

The Rev. J. ABERIGH Mackay. 

Mr. V. SERGE. 

Mr. Bennerr Petr. 


A proposal of the Council to alter Rule 7 of the Rules of the 
Society is considered, and, on the suggestion of Mr. J. Fraser, the 
following Rule is unanimously adopted to take the place of Rule 
7, Vil. :— 


PROCEEDINGS. xi 


“Candidates for admission as Members shall be proposed by one 
“and seconded by another Member of the Society, and, if agreed 
“to by a majority of the Council, shall be deemed to be duly 
‘ elected.” 


The Annual Report of the Council is read by the Honorary 
Secretary. (See p. xii.) 
The Honorary Treasurer reads his Annual Report. (See p. xv.) 


The election by ballot of Officers for the year 1881 is proceeded 
with, with the following result :— ; 

The Hon’ble Cecrt CLEMENTI SmivH, c.M.G., President. 
EH. Birper, Esquire, 1u.p., Vice-President, Singapore. 
G. W. Lavino, Esquire, Vice-President, Penang. 

F. A. Swetrennam, Esquire, Honorary Secretary. 
Epwin Kork, Esquire, Honorary Treasurer. 

N. B. Dennys, Esquire, Pu. D., \ 

W. Krouy, Esquire, 

C. Srrincer, Esquire, Councillors. 

W. A. Pickerine, Esquire, 

Bennett Perr, Esquire, / 

The Ven’ble Archdeacon Hoss makes a few remarks expressive 
of his regret on ceasing to be an Officer of the Society, owing to 
his early departure from Singapore, but assures the Members of 
his great and continued interest in the welfare of the Society. 

On the motion of Dr. E. Brezer, a cordial vote of thanks to the 


Ven’ble Archdeacon Hoss for his services as President of the So- 
ciety is unanimously agreed to. 


Archdeacon Hosr expresses his acknowledgments, and the pro. 
ceedings terminate. 


Xi 


ANNUAL REPORT 


OF THE 


COUNCHIE 


OF THE 
STRAITS. BRANCH 


OF THE 


ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, 


FOR THE YEAR 1880, 


Tue Council of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic 
Society, in making its Annual Report for the year 1880, is glad to 
be able to inform members that the affairs of the Society are in a 
satisfactory state. 


Some few members have resigned their membership, but their 
places have been filled by new names, several of these being former 
residents in the Straits Settlements, who, though now permanently 
settled in England, take a sufficient interest im the work of this 
Society to seek to become members of it. The Roll of Members 
stands now as follows :— 


The Patron, His Excellency Sir Freperick A. WELD, K.C.M.G. 


Honorary Members,............ 5 


Ordinary GOs) eee ae aetend ccjensse ee ter 

As will be seen from the Treasurer’s Report, the financial state 

of the Society is good, due in the main to the permission granted by 

the Government of the Colony that the Journals of the Society 

may be printed at the Government Printing Press, out of the 
regular hours of work, 


ANNUAL REPORT. Xili 


The Council of the Society desires to offer its sincere thanks 
to the Government for this privilege, and also in no less degree to 
Mr. Noronwa, the Superintendent of the Government Printing 
Department, and a Member of the Society, who has given his 
valuable assistance in printing the Journals without any remuner- 
ation whatever. 


The Meetings of the Council during the year 1880 were 
frequent, but the general meetings, as was anticipated, were held 
at irregular, and, latterly, at distant intervals. The explanation 
of this lies in the fact that, whereas a large number of MSS. 
were offered to the Council in the first year of the Society's exist- 
ence, the contributions have latterly become much less numerous. 
The Council trusts, however, that the sixth number of the Journal, 
a proof of the greater portion of which will be open for inspection 
to-night, and which will be shortly issued, will prove of equal 
interest with its predecessors; and it is also hoped that this year, 
the contributions will be sufficiently numerous to enable the mem- 
bers to meet with more regularity. 


The fourth number of the Journal ( nominally for January 
1880), did not appear till May, but the fifth number—the first printed 
at the Government Press—was issued at the end of July, and the 
sixth will only now be delayed to give time for the printing of 
some photographs to illustrate the President’s paper on the Ruins 


of the Temple of Bord Budur. 


It is very encouraging to be able to report the increased 
recognition of the existence of the Society. The Straits Asiatic 
Society now exchanges its publications with learned Societies, it 
may almost be said, in all parts of the civilised world, and besides 
the fact that the work here is thus given the widest circulation, 
the very interesting Journals and proceedings of those Societies in 
correspondence with it will, in time, form a valuable Library. 


The Council regrets to have to report that as yet there is no 
available information to give regarding the new map of the Malay 
Peninsula, which is being published under the auspices of this 
Society. The original tracing has been in the hands of the litho- 


X1¥ ANNUAL REPORT. 


grapher since 1879; several members of the Society in England 
have, it is understood, been interesting themselves in the matter, 
but the Council is unable to give any explanation of the great 
delay which has occurred. 


.The urgent need of this map is admitted by all; several new 
geographical and topographical discoveries have been made, even 
during the past year, and, with the basis of this new map to work 
upon, it may be hoped, with the assistance of members and all who | 
are interested in such a matter, to produce, in a few years’ time, an : 
accurate and useful map of the Malay Peninsula. 


Singapore, 31st January, 1881. 


fee TREASURER'S REPORT. 


By the statement of the Cash Accounts for the past year, which 
I now lay before the Society, it will be seen that the Receipts 
amounted to $1,412.96, and the payments to $1,207.07, shewing a 
balance of $205.89 in the hands of the Treasurer. 


The Subscriptions for 1879 to be received amount to $60, and 
those for 1880 amount to $120. There were bills for 1880 out- 
standing at the end of the year, amounting to $10.62, which have 
since been paid. The sum of $36 has been received to account of 
the subscriptions for 1879 and 1880, leaving a sum of $231.27 in 
the hands of the Treasurer, which, with the outstanding subscrip- 
tions for 1879 and 1880 shew a balance to the credit of the Society 
ot $91 5-27. 


The number of Members of the Society on the 30th January, 
1880, was 137, that is to say, 4 Honorary and 133 Ordinary Mem- 
bers. Since then, 15 new Members have been elected ; 12 have 
resigned ; 23 Members have failed to pay their subscriptions. Of 
this number, 13 are considered as having resigned their member- 
ship in accordance with Rule 6; but, the operation of this Rule is 
suspended in the case of the remaining 10 Members, who are likely 
to pay their subscriptions. I regret to have to record the loss 
by death of’ the Hon’ble Hoo An Kay Wuawmpoa, c.uM.a., and 
Mr. L. H. Woops. 


The list for 1881 contains 180 Members, classified as follows, 
viz., 5 Honorary and 125 Ordinary Members. 


EDWIN KOEK, 


Honorary Treasurer. 
4th February, 1881. 


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“ALAIDOS JLLVISVY TVAOU AHL JO HONVE SLIVULS 


SOME ACCOUNT 


OF 


Pea MINING DISTRICTS 


OF 


BewER PERAK. 


BY 


J. ERRINGTON DE LA CROIX, 
Ingénieur de Mines, 
Chargé par le Gouvernement Francais dune Mission 


Scientifique en Malaisie. 


oc 


HE region of Lower Pérak comprises numerous mining 
districts, which can be placed under the three follow- 
ing headings :-— 

Sungei Kinta District. 
Sungei Batang Padang District. 
Sungei Bidor District. 

The former is by far the most extensive, and includes no less 
than six mining centres which, according to Malay custom, 
take their names from the various main streams which drain 
them. They are the districts of Ulu Kinta, Sungei Trap, 
Sungei Raya, Sungei Tejah, Sungei Kampar, and Sungei 
Chendariang. 


Z MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. 


Geological Before giving the particular mining features of these various 
description, ,- o, - 4° 5 : 
: tin-fields, it is well to indicate first the geological outline of the 
country. 


The geological conditions of this part of the State are more 
varied than in the northern districts, and offer a greater diver- 
sity of sedimentary formation. (See Section. ) 


eel The granite constitutes the foundation of the main ranges 
and of the hills round which are distributed the different tin- 
fields. 


It is met with in the Senggan range at Gtinong Klédong, 
Changkat Lahat, the Gopeng hills, Bijang Malacca, and 
forms the basis of the Changkat Chumor and Janka, near 
‘Tapa. 
Like in other parts of the country, the rock is highly por- 

phyroid, composed of vitreous quartz, feldspar, mica and tour- 
maline, in which are imbedded large crystals of feldspar. 

The decomposition of the granite by atmospheric agencies 
has gradually denuded the large crystals, which are harder than 
the feldspathic element in ile paste, and left them projecting 
from the surface, giving the rock a peculiar appearance. 

The amount of mica and tourmaline varies slightly in the 
different localities, but without altering perceptibly the general 
aspect. 

sedimentary The sedimentary formation is represented by limestone, 
white ferruginous clay, and tale-schist. 

The limestone is very abundant in the whole of the Kinta 
region, and probably forms the basis of the alluvial deposit. 
It is found at the foot of Changkat Lahat, between the latter 
and Sungei Kinta. It has been greatly altered at the contact 
with the neighbouring eruptive rock, and has taken a saccha- 
roid aspect, being white and very crystalline. 

It is found again between Péngkalen Pegu and Péngkalen 
Baru, where little peaks crop out of the alluvial soil, broken 
up and highly decomposed at the surface, but offermg no 
longer the deep alterations noticed near the Senggan range. 


Eimestone. 


MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. 3 


At Klian Gtnong ( Kampar ) the limestone is again visible, 
being white crystalline and containing, m numerous fissures, the 
-tin-ore that has drifted from the granitic formation in the vici- 
nity. 

South of Gopeng, between Kampar river and Bijang Malacca, 
several high hills—Ginong Ramian, Gajah and Kandong—are 
entirely of limestone, and resemble, on a larger scale, the well 
known Gtinong Pondok near Gapis and Ginong Kurau. 

In other spots, such as Kampong Baru on Sungei Kampar, 
the limestone does not seem to have been much altered by the 
contact of the Bujang Malacca group, and has kept the usual 
aspect of mountainous limestone. 

In the Baitang Padang district, South of Tapa, the sedi- 
mentary formation is represented by white clay imbedding 
nodules of red ferruginous matter. 

In a few places of the same district talc-schist can be seen 
cropping out from under the clay and resting on decomposed 
granite. 

In this particular mining district the tin-ore is found at the 
very top of the hills, which leads one to infer that the upheavy- 
al which has produced them must belong to a second series 
of plutonic action posterior to that which has formed the prin- 
cipal ranges of the country. 

Ulu Kinta district, which includes most of the region above 
Péngkalen Pegu (see Map ), is the most extensive of all, but 
at the same time, owing to the greater distance from the sea, 
is the least worked by miners, who naturally prefer turning 
first to account the mineral wealth of the lower country. 

It is a “ reserve ”’ for the future, and will, no doubt, be found 
just as rich as any other part of the State. 

At present the principal works are carried on on the Sungei 
Pari and Sungei Chémer, at the foot of the Senggan range. 
The tin-ore produced is of a very good quality, and contains a 
large proportion of white oxide. 

The Sungei Kinta itself contains considerable quantities of 


PP 


Sa 


ee 
<= 


Clay. he 


| 

in 
Tale-Schisi 

| 


MINI ING! 
DISTRICTS. \ " 
Ulu Kin ta. | 


“unget Trap 
| |\\estarect. 


\\enget Pa- 
| 1. 


4 MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. 


tin, and near Ipoh the natives find it profitable to wash the 
sand in the bed of the river. According to reports, a man, if 
he can stand to work in the water for several hours, can collect 
in a day as much as fifteen katties of ore, worth two dollars. 

This district is situated on the right bank of the river Kinta 
and is well populated by miners, both Chinamen and Malays. 

The Papan valley les between several high hills and is 
divided into numerous small “ gullies, ’? where rich pockets of 
tin are found. 

The valley is about one mile in width by one and-a-half in 
length, but, up to now, the outskirts only have been turned to 
account, owing to the great flow of water which often floods 
the lower part of the valley. 

Thirteen mines are at present in full swing, and occupy 
five hundred men, Chinese and Malays. 

Klian Johan, worked by Chinamen, is the most important of 
all and is probably the deepest mine in the whole State, attam- 
ing a depth of fifty feet. 

The ore is disseminated, from the surface downwards, through- 
out the ground, which is geologically formed of white friable ~ 
clay. The wash is clean and becomes richer in depth. The 
pumping of the water is managed by the means of a Chinese 
water-wheel, and the washing of the ore takes place in a long 
canal acting as a sluice-box. 

On each side of that mine, Malays are also carrying on 
works to the same depth, but unable themselves to put up a 
proper draining apparatus, they have made with their more 
industrious neighbours a contract by which they are allowed 
to let their water flow into the Chinese mine on condition of 
paying one-tenth of their whole produce. 

The ore is smelted in the village, and, being of a very good 
quality, no blast is required, and the consumption of fuel 
amounts to only one pikul of charcoal to one pikul of ore. 

Eleven furnaces are at work and return, on an average, forty 
pikuls in twenty-four hours. 

The richest deposit lies, no doubt, in the centre of the valley, 


MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. a 


but can hardly be worked until a proper and systematic drain- 
age has been organised. 

A road, four iio long, is being made and will join Papan 
to Batu Gajah on the Kania river. 

Several other mines of less importance are worked in the 
district, especially on the Sungei Trap, where the ore is found 
in large stones of nearly pure oxide imbedded in a hard blue 
clay. 

The Sungei Raya district is the smallest of all, but at the 
same time makes the largest returns of tin, owing to the 
adventurous and enterprising spirit of Péngulu To’ Domsa, who 
attracts numerous Chinamen by annie them the necessary 
sums to start mines in his district. The total Chinese popula- 
tion amounts to 6 or 700, but many other smaller works are 
carried on by Malays. 

The principal works are situated in the Géopeng valley. The 
geological formation is granitic. At the head of the valley the 
wash lies under a greyish, yellowish clay at a depth of 8 to 9 
feet from surface ; it varies in thickness from 3 to 44 feet, but 
does not present throughout a regular percentage of tin-ore, 
it being generally found im large pockets disseminated in the 
wash. These pockets are very rich and exceed in quantity and 
quality anything existing in the best mines of Larut. Unfor- 
tunately the extent of mining ground is very limited in the 
upper part of the valley, and has been very nearly worked out. 
Four Kongsis, numbermg 150 men, are still at work, but will 
have exhausted their mines within the next two years. 

The new mines lately opened in the lower part of the valley 
towards the plain are getting on fairly; the wash is thicker, but 
not so rich and deeper below surface. However, little has been 
done yet to give the plain a fair trial, and there is no reason 
why it should not improve. 

Fifteen to sixteen Kongsis, with a total number cf 7 to 800 
coolies, are occupied at present in the oe district, and re- 
turning steadily large quantities of tin. The produce for the 
week (50th January to 6th February ) eee to 120 pikuls. 


Sungei Trep. 


Sungei Keyes 
district. 


Sunget Tejar 
district. Go- 


peng. 


6 MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. 


} The metal is sent on elephants to Péngkalen Baru on Sungei 
| Raya, where it is shipped for Durian Sa’biatang, but a better 
mode of transport will shortly be available when the Govern-- 
ment has completed the fine cart-read which is now being made 
from Gépeng to Kota Baru on the Kinta river. 
| Several other surface works have been started among the 
small hills lying between Gopeng and Péngkalen Baru; they are 
of but small importance, but they return very pure ore, which 
smelts easily and gives as much as 70 katties of metal to one 
pikul of ore, the percentage being consequently 70 per cent. 


It will be noticed that, as a rule, the surface mines known by 
the name ot “ Lampong Works’’ produce much cleaner ore 
| than deep works, owing probably to the fact that the surface 
soil is lighter than the deeper wash, formed of feldspar and 
| quartz, and is consequently easier to separate by washing : 
another reason is also that in the “ Lampong Works’’ the miners 
do not generally smelt their own ore, but sell it, and have often 
to carry it to a considerable distance, whence the utility of 


i 


| taking greater pains in the dressing. 
_SungeiKam- This district is one of the largest, but has been little visited 
| paw district. ra) ’ 


| up to now. Chinamen, however, have just begun starting 
i 4 


| works on their own account, principally at Kiian Gimong, 
| where the tin is found deposited in the fissures and crevices of 
the limestone. ; 

A certain amount of tin is also found in the bed of the main 
i stream and the natives in several places work it profitably. 
) At Kampong Snudong, on the western slope of Bijang 
| Kilian Snu- Malacca, a Malay mine is being worked on an entirely native 
principle. 
| The ore is disseminated throughout the ground, which is_ 
: slightly argillaceous, but friable and easy to wash. 

Small canals have been brought from the river and run at 
the foot of the different cuttings. The ground is cut down and 
i . thrown in those canals and dressed like in a sluice-box, the 
height of the face is from 10 to 15 feet; when the ground 


has been stripped to the level of the water, it is divided into 


MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. 0 
small rectangular lots, 30 feet long by 15 wide, round which 
the canals are made to circulate, these lots are ultimately 
worked out, but not to a greater depth than 5 feet below the 
water mark. 

These mines are worked by the owners, or by strangers who 
obtain from them a permit to dig, provided they remit one- 
third, one-sixth, or one-half of the product, according to the 
richness of the soil. | 

Quite lately a Chinaman has come from Gépeng and started 
a new mine, where thirty men are employed. 

There is no doubt that the whole region lying West of Bi- 
jang Malacca will prove to be one of the richest fields in the 
whole State. 

This district is small, but produces first quality ore. 

The most important works are in the vicinity of _ Kampong 
Naga Baru. ) 

The formation is entirely granitic, and large quantities of ore 
are found on the surface oe the soil, requiring but the trouble 
to pick it. 

The sand of the river is also ver y rich, and many inhabitants 
of the village are employed in washing it, getting an.average 
of 70 cents a day. 

Some few Malays are also employed in collecting tin-ore in 
the different small “ eullies ’’ formed by the last ramifications 
of the range. 

The only large mine at work in the district belongs to a 
Malay, who as let 1t to a Kongsi of fifty Chinamen for one- 
tenth of the total produce. 

The wash lies at a depth of thirty feet, and though being 
only two to three feet thick, furnishes better results than in any 
other part of the State. The ground is more loose and easier 
to dig than in other districts. 

A small amount of gold is occasionally found mixed with 
the tin, but not in pay “ple quantities, the proportion, however, 
increases in the direction of Baitang Padang. 


Judging by the very large blocks of solid oxide which are 


Chendar ian), 


district. 


i 
tH 


} 
| 
Halt | 


\Witang Pa- 
img dis- 
et. 


Nhe hat 
| amor. 
H) 


8 MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAR. 


frequently found in the wash, as well as on surface, there is no 
doubt that the lodes which have produced this wonderful 
deposit must be uncommonly thick, and extend over a consi- 
derable length of ground; the tin-field probably extends all 
round Bijang Malacca, between the latter and the more eas- 
tern range of mountains, and there is no reason why it should 
not prove just as rich as in the immediate vicinity of Naga Baru. 

All indications lead one to believe that before long this Chen- 
dariang district will become the most important centre of pro- 
duction of the whole State. 

Every effort ought to be made to open that part of the coun- 
try. The Chendariang river will never allow a large traffic, 
whereas the Baitang Padang river might be cleared without 
much ecst, and made navigable to a steam-launch drawing 2 
feet cf water, for at least two-thirds of the way to Thappa. 
A cart road that would hardly exceed ten miles could then jom 
Chendariang to the accessible part of Sungei Batang Pidang. 

The mining fields of this district are situated South of 
Thappa at a distance of two to three miles from the river. 
They are three in number. Changkat Chumor, Changkat 
Janka, and Khan Baru. 

The geological features of this field have already been men- 
tioned. The formation is a whité ferruginous clay exceedingly 
thick, resting on tale-schist and granite. The whole ground, 
up to the summit of the hill, which is about 150 feet high, is 
impregnated with tin-ore in sufficient proportion to male it 
paya able and the whole of the stratum 1s bemg worked at present. 

Rain water is made the most of for dressing purposes, and 1s 
collected in small reservoirs and ditches running im all 
directions on the surface of the hill. The tin stuffis thrown in, 
the tin remains at the bottom, whilst the refuse is carried away 
by the current. When rain water is scarce, the soil is simply 
taken to the foot of the hill and washed in a long canal which 
has been diverted from the river. 

The Chinamen work here on their own account by small - 
gangs of eight to ten men, and the total population amounts 


MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. 9 


to about 300 miners. No gold is found at Changkat Chumor. 

This hill is situated a little further to the South-east of the 
preceding one. 

The works are only carried on in the valley where two Kone- 
sis, numberme one hundred men, are working two mines pro- 
vided with water-wheels. 

In one of the mines the wash is found at a depth of ten feet 
below the surface, and is from five to six feet thick. It is fria- 
ble and clean and gives good results. Small quantities of 
gold are found with the tin—from 40 to 55 grains to one pikul 
of ore. 

In the other mine, sixty coolies are engaged. The wash is 
six feet deep and measures three feet in thickness, resting on 
a false bottom of clay four feet thick ; below this is a second 
layer of wash four feet in thickness, the total depth of the 
mine being seventeen feet. 

The first layer contains a little tin, but no gold, whereas the 
bottom wash is rich in tin-ore and contains 60 grains of the 
precious metal to one pikul of tin sand. 

Two furnaces smelt the product and no blast is required. 

At Klian Baru four or five small Kongsis are at work and 
employ one hundred men. ‘The most conspicuous feature of 
this small district is the greater proportion of gold found 
in the wash, averaging 260 grains to one pikul of ore. 

Most of the tin-fields in the vicinity of Tapa have been 
worked since a long period of time, and may be considered at 
present as pretty well exhausted. New researches must now 
be directed towards the upper part of the river, at the foot of 
the Batang Pidang range, where new deposits will probably 
be found. ; 

The general deductions to be drawn from this rapid sketch 
of the mining conditions in this wonderful little country are 
sufficiently evident. 

In all the districts, mining is still in a state of infancy, a few 
small centres have been exhausted, but they form but a very 
triflmg portion of the country. New fields are constantly 
being discovered and there remains to establish between them 


Changkat 
Janka. 


Klian Baru. | 


General 
Renvarhks. 


10 MINING DISTRICTS OF LOWER PERAK. 


and the main rivers proper means of communication. 

A good deal has already been done, and well done, to that 
cect, and it throws great credit on the Government of the State. 
The Kinta River is cleared, or very nearly so, as far as Kota 
Baru. In a very short time it will be accessible to a steam- 
launch as far as Batu Gajah. The good effect of such work 
has already manifested itself not only through a greater influx 
of mining population, but also in a commercial point of view. 

Hixcellent roads will soon join the two important districis of 
Gopeng and Papan to Sungei Kinta which is the great artery 
of the country, and give them a new impulse. 

A deal of good might also be done if the Government took 
im hand the draining of certain districts, which, until then, can 
only be superficially worked. 

The great fault with Chinamen, and especially Malays, does 
not lie so much in their defective method of working as in 
their inability to organise a proper draining system that will 
carry away the surface water. 

The disastrous consequence is that most of the mimes are 
only half worked out, but sufficiently however to render it 
impossible and unprofitable to others to resume the works at a 
future period. Considerable quantities of ore are consequently 
abandoned and lost for ever. 

The Government would amply recover such expenditure, 
for the working out of the country is a work of time and not 
of a few years as will be shown by the following figures. The 
total area of the eight mining districts in Lower Pérak can be 
estimated at 1,200 square miles, or 768,000 acres, and it can 
safely be stated that one acre in one hundred is actual alluvial 
mining ground, offering thus a total “ surface utile ’’ of 7,680 
acres, which, under very ordinary circumstances, will afford 
profitable work to 25,000 miners for the next hundred years. 


28th February, 1881. 


THE 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


BY 


W. E. MAXWELL. 


“There is vothing that clings longer to a race than the religious 
“faith in which it has been nurtured. Indeed, it is impossible for 
“any mind that is not thoroughly scientific to cast off entirely the 
“religious forms of thought in which it has grown to maturity. 
““Tlence, in every people that has received the impression of for- 
“eion beliefs, we find that the latter do not expel and supersede 
“the older religion, but are engrafted on it, blend with it, or 
“overlie it. Observances are more easily abandoned than ideas, 
“and even when all the external forms of the alien faith have been 
“put on, and few vestiges of the indigenous one remain, the latter 
“still retains its vitality in the mind, and powerfully colours or 
“corrupts the former. The actual religion of a people is thus of 
“ great ethnographic interest, and demands a minute and searching 
“observation. -. No other facts relating to rude tribes are more 
“ difficult of ascertainment or more often elude enquiry.”* The 
general principle stated by Loaan in the passage just quoted 
receives remarkable illustration from a close investigation of the 
folklore and superstitious beliefs of the Malays. T'wo successive 
religious changes have taken place among them, and when we have 
succeeded in identifying the vestiges of Brahmanism which under- 


lie the external forms of the faith of Muhammad, long established 


in all Malay kingdoms, we are only half-way through our task. 
There yet remain the powerful influences of the still earlier indi- 
genous faith to be noted and accounted for. Just as the Buddhists 
of Ceylon turn, in times of sickness and danger, not to the consola- 


* Logan—Journal of the Indian Archipelago, LY., 673. 


ey FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


tions offered by the creed of Buddha, but to the propitiation of the 
demons feared and reverenced by their early progenitors, and just 
as the Burmese and Talaigs, though Buddhists, retain in full 
force the whole of the Mat superstition, so among the Malays, 
in spite of centuries which have passed since the establishment of 
an alien worship, the Muhammadan peasant may be found invoking 
the protection of Hindu gods against the spirits of evil with which 
his primitive faith has peopled all natural objects. 

An exposition of the chief characteristics of demon-worship, as 
it still lingers among the Malays, is a work requiring some research 
and labour. Its very existence is scarcely known, and there 
are not probably many Englishmen who have witnessed the 
frantic dances of the Pawang, or listened to the chant and drum 
of the Bidu beside the bed of some sick or dying person. In the 
present paper, a corner is lifted of the veil of Muhammadanism, 
behind the dull uniformity of which, few, even, among those who 
know Malays well, have cared to look, and an attempt is made to 
select from the folklore of the peasantry a few popular customs 
and superstitions, some of which had their origin in the beliefs of 
the pre-Muhammadan period. 

The Malay language itself, abounding as it does in words derived 
from or imported direct from Sanskrit, offers copious materials for 
illustrating the progress of Hindu influences in this part of the 
world. To the evidence thus furnished, the corroborative testi- 
mony afforded by the sayings and legends of the people is an 
important addition. 


Birps. 


Ideas of various characters are associated by Malays with birds 
of different kinds, and many of their favourite similes are furnish- 
ed by the feathered world. The peacock strutting in the jungle, 
the argus-pheasant calling on the mountain peak, the hoot of the 
owl, and the cry of the night-jar, have all suggested comparisons of 
various kinds, which are embodied in the proverbs of the people.* 
The Malay is a keen observer of nature, and his illustrations, drawn 
from such sources, are generally just and often poetical. 


* Malay Proverbs—Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society ( Straits Branch ), 
Nos. 4, 72, 73, 93. 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. ite 


The supernatural bird Gerda (Garuda, the eagle of Vishnu), who 
figures frequently in Malay romances, is dimly known to the 
Malay peasant. If, during the day, the sun is suddenly overcast 
by clouds and shadow succeeds to brilliancy, the Pérak Malay will 
say “Gerda is spreading out his wings to dry.” * Tales are told, 
too, of other fabulous birds—the jintayu, which is never seen, though 
its note is heard, and which announces the approach of rain; f and 
the chandrawasi which has no feet. The chandrawasi lives in the 
air, and is constantly on the wing, never descending to earth or 
alighting onatree. Its young even are produced without the neces- 
sity of touching the earth. The eee is allowed to drop, and as it nears 
the earth it bursts and the young bird appears fully developed. 
The note of the chandrawasi may often be heard at night, but 
never by day, and it is lucky, say the Malays, to halt at a spot 
where it is heard calling. 

There is an allusion to this mythical bird in a common pantun— 
a kind of erotic stanza very popular among the Malays :— 


Chandrawasi burong sakti 

Sangat berkurong didalam awan. 
Gonda gulana didalam hati, 

Sahari tidak memandang tuan.t 


Nocturnal birds are generally considered ill-omened all over the 
world, and popular superstition among the Malays fosters a prejudice 
against one species of owl. Jfit happens to alight and hoot near 
a house, the inmates say significantly that there will soon be “tear- 
ing of cloth” (koyah kapan) for a shroud. ‘This does not apply to 
the small owl called punggok, which, as the moon rises, may often be 
heard to emit a soft, plaintive note. The note of the punggok is 
admired by the Malays, who suppose it to be sighing for the moon, 
and find in it an apt simile for a desponding lover. 


* Gerda meniumur kepah-nia. 
+ Laksana jintayu me-nanti-kan hujan—As the jintayy awaits the rain—is a 
proverbial simile for a state of an xiety and despondency. 
Jintayu=jatayu (Sanskrit), a fabulous vulture. 

t The chandrawasi, bird of power 

Is closely hidden ‘amid the clouds. 

A nxiety reigns in my heart, 

Each day that I see not my love. 


14 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


The baberek, or birik-birik, another nocturnal bird, is a harbinger 
of misfortune. This bird is said to fly in flocks at night; it has a 
peculiar note, and a passing flock makes a good deal of noise. If 
these birds are heard passing, the Pérak peasant brings out a 
séngkalan (a wooden platter on which spices are ground) and beats 
it with a knife or other domestic utensil, calling out as he does so: 
“ Nenek bawa hati-nia” (“ Great-grandfather, bring us their hearts’). 
This is an allusion to the behef that the bird baberek flies in the 
train of the Spectre Huntsman (hantu pemburu), who roams 
Malay forests with several ghostly dogs, and whose appearance is 
the forerunner of disease or death. ‘Bring us their hearts” is a 
mode of asking for some of his game, and it is hoped that the 
request will delude the hantu pemburu into the belief that the 
applicants are ra‘zyat, or followers, of his, and that he will, there- 
fore, spare the household. 

The baberek, which flies with the wild hunt, bears a striking 
resemblance to the white owl, Totosel, the nun who broke her vows 
and now mingles her “tutu” with the “holoa” of the Wild 
Huntsman of the Hartz.** 

The legend of the Spectre Huntsman is thus told by the Pérak 
Malays :— 

In. former days, at Katapang, in Sumatra, there lived a man 
whose wife, during her pregnancy, was seized with a violent 
longing for the meat of the pelandok ( mouse-deer ). But 
it was no ordinary pelandok that she wanted. She insisted 
that it should be a doe, big with male offspring, and she bade 
her husband go and seek in the jungle for what she wanted. 
The man took his weapons and dogs and started, but his quest was 
fruitless, for he had misunderstood his wife’s injunctions, and what 
he sought was a buck pelandok, big with male offspring, an un- 
heard of prodigy. Day and night he hunted, slaying innumerable 
mouse-deer, which he threw away on finding that they did not 
fulfil the conditions required. He had sworn a solemn oath on 
leaving home that he would not return unsuccessful, so he 
became a regular denizen of the forest, eating the flesh and drink- 
ing the blood of the animals which he slew, and pursuing night and 
day his fruitless search. At length he said to himself: “I have 


= 


* Dawn of History, p. 171, 


FOLKLORE OF TIE MALAYS. 1d 


“hunted the whole earth over without finding what I want; it is 
“now time to try the firmament.” So he holloa’d on his dogs 
through the sky, while he walked below on the earth looking up 
at them, and after a long time, the hunt still being unsuccessful, 
the back of his head, from constantly gazing: upwards, became fixed 
to his back, and he was no longer able to look down at the earth. 
One day, a leaf from the tree called Si Limbak fell on his throat 
and took root there and a straight shoot grew upwards in front of 
his face. In this state he still hunts through Malay forests, urging 
on his dogs as they hunt through the sky, with his gaze evermore 
turned upwards. 

His wife, whom he had left behind when he started on the fatal 
chase, was delivered in due time of two children—a boy and a girl. 
When they were old enough to play with other children, it chanced 
one day that the boy quarrelled with the child of a neighbour with 
whom he was playing. The latter reproached him with his father’s 
fate, of which the child had hitherto been ignorant, saying: “Thou 
“art like thy father, who has become an evil spirit, ranging the 
“forests day and night and eating and drinking no man knows how. 
“Get thou to thy father.” Then the boy ran crying to his mother 
and related what had been said to him. ‘ Do not cry,” said she, “it 
“is true, alas! that thy father has become a spirit of evil.” On this 
the boy cried all the more, and begged to be allowed to join his 
father. His mother yielded at last to his entreaties, and told him 
the name of his father and the names of the dogs. He might be 
known, she said, by his habit of gazing fixedly at the sky and by 
his four weapons—a blow-pipe ( sumpitan ), a spear, a kris, and a 
sword (klewang ). “And,” added she, ‘when thou hearest the 
“hunt approaching, call upon him and the dogs by name and repeat 
“thy own name and mine so that he may know thee.” 

The boy entered the forest, and, after he had walked some 
way, met an old man, who asked him where he was going. “I 
‘eo to join my father,” said the lad. “If thou findest him,” said 
the old man, “ask him where he has put my chisel which he bor- 
“rowed from me.” This the boy promised to do, and continued his 
journey. After he had gone a long way, he heard sounds like 
those made by people engaged in hunting. As they approached, 
he repeated the names which his mother had told him, and 


16 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


immediately found himself face to face with his father. The 
hunter demanded of him who he was, and the child repeated 
all that his mother had told him, not forgetting the message 
of the old man about the chisel.* Then the hunter said: 
“Truly thou art my son. As for the chisel it is true that whem 
“ T started from house I wasin the middle of shaping some bamboos 
“to make steps for the house. I put the chisel inside one of the 
“bamboos. Take it and return it to the owner. Return now and take 
‘care of thy mother and sister. As for he who reproached thee, 
“hereafter we will repay him. I will eat his heart and drink his 
“blood, so shall he be rewarded.” From that time forward the 
Spectre Huntsman has afflicted mankind, and many are those whom 
he has destroyed. Before dismissing his son, he desired him to 
warn all his kindred never to use bamboo for making steps for a 
house and never to hang clothes to dry from poles stuck in between 
the joists supporting the floor, and thus jutting out at right angles 
with a house,t “lest,” said he, ‘‘I should strike against such poles 
‘as I walk along.” ‘“ Further,” he continued, “when ye hear the 
‘note of the bird birik-birik at night, ye will know that I am walk- 
‘ing near.” Then the boy returned to his mother and delivered to 
her and to all their kindred the injunctions of the lost man. One 
account says that the woman followed her spectre husband to the 
forest, where she joms in the chase with him to this day, and that 
they have there children born in the woods. The first boy and 
girl retained their human form, according to this account, but some 
Pawangs say that the whole family are im the forest with the 
father. 


* The episode of the chisel, which here seems to be meaningless, connects this 
legend with the beliefs of the Bataks and of the Balinese reg warding pes 
If an earthquake occurs, the Batak calls out Sohkul ( the handle of chisel yi 
allusion to the chisel of Batara Guru, which was broken during the creation of ae 
world when a raft was being made for the support of the earth. See Kawi Lan- 
guage and Literature, Van per Tevk, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, XIIL., 
NUS. ,sbaut 2.2.60; 

+ Ti explanation of this, it may be necessary to remark that M alay houses are 
built on wooden posts, so that ‘the floor is raised off the ground to a height 
varying from three to six feet. A horizontal pole, wedged into the fr amework of 
the floor from the outside, would thus stick out at right angles to the house and 
obstruct a passer-by. 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 17 


Nuinerous mandrau, or charms, against the evil influence of the 
Wild Huntsman are in use among the Pawangs, or medicine-men, 
of Pérak. These are repeated, accompanied by appropriate cere- 
monies, when the disease from which some sick person is suffering 
has been traced to an encounter with the hantu pemburu. 


The following may serve as a specimen :— 


Bi-smi-llahi-r-rahmani-r-rahim. 


Es-salaiiu aleykum Het Si Jidi laki Mah Judah. 


Pergi buru ka-rimba Rauchah Mahang. 

Katapang nama bukit-nia, 

Si Langsat nama anjing-nia, 

Si Kumbang nama anjing-nia, 

Se Nibong nama anjing-nia, 

Si Pintas nama anjing-nia, 

St Aru-Aru nama anjing-nia, 

Timiang Balu nama sumpitan-nia, 

Lankapurt nana lembing-nia, 

Singha-buana nama mata-nia, 

Pisau raut panjang ulu 

Akan pemblah pinang berbulu, 

Ini-lah pisan raut deripada Maharaja auru. 

Akan pemblah prut hantu pemburu. 

Aku tahu asal angkau mula menjadi orang Katapang. 
Pulang-lah angkau ka vimba Ranchah Mahang. 
Jangan angkau meniakat-meniakit pada tuboh badan-ku. 


“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. 
Peace be on thee, O Si Jidi husband of Mah Jadah. 


Go thou and hunt in the forest of Ranchah Mahang. 
Katapang is the name of thy hill, 

Si Langsat is the name of thy dog, 

St Kumbang is the name of thy dog, 

St Nibong is the name of thy dog, 

Si Pintas is the name of thy dog, 

Si Aru-Aru is the name of thy dog, 

Timiang Balu is the name of thy blow-pipe, 
Lankapuri is the name of thy spear, 


18 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


Singha-buana is the name of its blade, 

The peeling-knife with a long handle 

Js to split in twain the fibrous betel-nut ; 
Here is a knife from Maharaja Gurn 

To cleave the bowels of the Hunter-Spirit. 

I know the origin from which thou springest, 

O man of Katapang. 

Get thee back to the forest of Ranchah Mahang. 
Afflict not my body with pain or disease.”* 


In charms intended to guard him who repeats them, or who 
wears them written on paper, against the evil influences of the 
Spectre Huntsmany the names of the dogs, weapons, &c., constantly 
vary. ‘The origin of the dreaded demon is always, however, 
ascribed to Katapang in Sumatra. This superstition strikingly 
resembles the Huropean legends of the Wild Huntsman, whose shouts 
the trembling peasants hear above the storm. It is, no doubt, of 
Aryan origin, and, coming to the Peninsula from Sumatra, seems to 
corroborate existing evidence tending to shew that it is partly 
through Sumatra that the Peninsula has received Aryan myths and 
Indian phraseology. A superstitious prejudice against the use of bam- 
boo in makinga step-ladder for a Malay house and against drying 
clothes outside a house on poles stuck into the framework, exists 
in full force among the Pérak Malays. The note of the bzrik-birik 
at night, telling as it does of the approach of the hantu pemburu, 
is listened to with the utmost dread and misgiving. The Bataks 
in Sumatra call this bird by the same name-—birik-birik. It is 
noticeable that in Batak legends regarding the creation of the 
world, the origin of mankind is ascribed to Putri-Orta-Bulan, the 
daughter of Batara-Guru, who descended to the earth with a white 
owl and a dog.t 


* See a similar charm, for protection against this spirit, in use among one of 
the wild tribes of the peninsula, Journal of the Indian Archepelago, I.,318. In 
the charm given in the text the names of the forest, dogs and blow-pipe are 
Malay, Lankapuri is the Sanskrit name for the island of Ceylon, and Singha- 
buana seems to be composed of two Sanskrit words meaning “ lion” and “ world.” 

¢ Four or five different versions are in my possession. 

{~ Mazspen—History of Sumatra, 385. An imperfect version of the 6 ee of 
the hantu pembury is to be found in DE BAcKkeER’s LD’ Archipel Indien, 


FOLKLORE OF THE MADLAYS. 19 


Hovsks. 


The superstitions about houses are of infinite number and variety. 
It is unlucky to place the ladder or steps, which form the approach 
to a Malay house, in such a position that one of the main rafters of 
the roof is exactly over the centre of them. Quarrels or fighting 
in the house will certainly be the result. In selecting timber for 
the uprights of a Malay house care must be taken to reject any 
log which is indented by the pressure of any parasitic creeper 
which may have wound round it when it was a living tree. A 
log so marked, if used in building a house, exercises an unfavoura- 
ble influence im child-birth, protracting delivery, and endangering 
the lives of mother and child. Many precautions must be taken to 
guard against evil influences of a similar kind, when one of the 
inmates of a house is expecting to become a mother. No one may 
“divide the house” (belah +umah,) that is, go in at the front 
door and out by the back, or vice versd, nor may any guest or 
stranger be entertained in the house for one night only ; he must 
be detained for a second night to complete an even period. If 
an eclipse occurs, the woman on whose account these observances 
are necessary must be taken into the penangga (kitchen ) and 
placed beneath the shelf or platform (para) on which the domes- 
tic utensils are kept. A spoon is put into her hand. If these 
precautions are not taken, the child, when born, will be deformed. 

To trip on the steps, or to knock one’s head against the lintel 
(Malay door-ways are always inconveniently low) on leaving a 
house, is unlucky, and if the person to whom this happens is start- 
ing upon any business, it must be postponed, and he must stay at 
home, for the accidents mentioned forbode death. It is also 
unlucky to start on a journey when rain is falling, for the rain 
signifies ayer mata (tears). 

It is unlucky for any one to stand with his arms resting on the 
steps of a ladder going up to a house for the purpose of talking to 
one of the inmates. The reason is, that if a corpse is carried out of 
the house, there must be a man below in this position to receive it. 
To assume this attidude unnecessarily, therefore, is to wish for a 
death in the family (menyuroh hap). 


LANGKAH. 
The Malays share with most other Hastern nations the superstt 


20 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


tion which demands that great attention should be paid to the 
selection of lucky days and lucky hours for the commencement of 
any important undertaking. The failure of an enterprise, or the 
bad weather wuich may happen to attend a journey, is often 
ascribed to insufficient care in selecting a time when all the condi- 
tions for the start (langkah)* should be propitious. There are 
numerous methods of ascertaining lucky and unlucky days and 
times, but the ceremonies do not end with the fixing of the time. 
While waiting for the lucky moment to arrive, a Raja or Chief who 
is about to start on a journey remains alone in the house, while his 
attendants stand below in readiness. When at length he descends 
the steps, his path must not be crossed by any one, nor may any one 
stand in front of the door. If he knocks his head against the 
lintel, or catches his great toe in any obstacle, the start is given up, 
and hereturns to the house. If he reaches the ground without 
accident (kachak halaman), he meditates upon a prescribed formula 
which he repeats in his mind. He avoids the centre of the halaman 
(open space or yard in front of a house), which is called by the 
Malays tanah kubur (“ the site of tombs”), and directs his course 
towards the right. 

A journey so begun may last an indefinite time without impair- 
ing the efficacy of the good fortune ensured by the observance of 
the proper ceremonies on starting. The whole journey, e. g., a 
pilgrimage to Mecca, is covered by them, and the good luck ensur- 
ed thereby ends only when the house is again reached on the 
return of the traveller. Some Malays, however, prefer to renew 
the langkah every Friday. 

One of the methods of ascertaining what particular times will 
be auspicious, or the reverse, is called si boxgkok (‘the bent 
one”). The thumb of one hand is cloesd, and the two joints and 
thiee spaces thus formed are made to represent, early morning ( pagi- 
pagi ), forenoon (tengah naik ), midday (tengah hari ), afternoon 
( tengah turun ), and evening ( petang-petang ). Different degrees 
of fortune may be expected according as the periods named fall to 
the different jomts and spaces of the thumb, Another system is 
called st tandok (“the horn”). It is a calculation on paper by 
means of a design in the shape of a horn, to different parts of which 


* Sanskrit /angh, to stride. 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 21 


different qualifications areattributed. Good or evil fortune may be 
expected according as the various periods fall to the various por- 
tions of the design. Numerous Malay treatises on this, to them 
all-important, subject exist. One well-known one is called Se- 
dang Budiman. ‘The most popular, perhaps, are those which 
treat of the five ominous times (katika lima) and the seven 
ominous times (katika tujoh). The latter are ruled by the bin- 
tang tujoh (the seven planets ), which the Malays enumerate as fol- 
lows: Shems, the sun; Kamr, the moon; Marik, Mars; Utarid, Mer- 
eury ; Zahrat, Venus ; Mustari, Jupiter; Zahal, Saturn. Tables are 
drawn up assigning the inflnence of one of these to every hour of 
the week, and the nature of tlie influence which each planet is sup- 
posed to exercise is fully explained. 


Ture Rarvsow. 


Palangi, the usual Malay word for the rainbow, means “ striped.” 
The name varics, however, in different localities. In Pérak it is 
called palangi minum (trom a belief that it is the path by which 
spirits descend to the earth to drink), while in Penang it is known 
as ular danu* (‘the snake danu”). In Perak, a rainbow which 
stretches in an arch across the sky is called bantal (“the pillow ”’) 
for some reason which I have been unable to ascertain. When 
only a small portion of a rainbow is visible, which seems to touch 
the earth, it is called tunggul (‘the fiag’’), and if this is seen at 
some particular point of the compass—the West, I think,—it 
betokens, the Pérak Malays say, the approaching death of a Raja. 

Another popular belief is that the ends of the rainbow rest on 
the earth, and that if one could dig at the exact spot covered by one 
end of it, an untold treasure would be found there. Unfortunately, 
no one can ever arrive at the place. 


SUNSET. 


Sunset is the hour when evil spirits of all kinds have most power. 
In Pérak, children are often called indoors at this time to save 
them from nnscen dangers. Sometimes, with the same object, a 


* Dianuk, in Hindustani, means “a bew” and is a common term in India, 
among Hindus, for the rainbow; dhanu and dhanush also signify ‘a bow,” 
dhanu is used tor the sign Sagittarius. All these words are of Sanskrit origin. 


22 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 

woman belonging to a house where there are young children will 
chew up kuniet térus (an evil-smelling root, supposed to be much 
disliked by demons of all kinds) and spit it out at seven different 
points as she walks round the house. 

The yellow glow which spreads over the western sky, when it 
is lighted up with the last rays of the dying sun, is called mambang 
kuning (‘the yellow deity’’), a term indicative of the superstitious 

dread associated with this particular period. The fact that a Sans- 
krit phrase senja kala (samdhya kala) is employed in Malay to 
describe the evening twilight, is not without significance in connec- 
tion with some of these superstitions. 


te p ANCE OF UOW-DEEFEF. 
AVOIDANCE oF Cow-BEEF 


Among the modern Malays, avoidance of the flesh of swime, and 
of contact with anything connected with the unclean animal is, of 
course, universal. No tenet of Hl-Islam is more rigidly enforced 
than this. It is singular to notice, among a people governed by the 
ordinances of the Prophet, traces of the observance of another form 
of abstinence enjoined by a different religion. ‘The universal pre- 
ference of the flesh of the buttalo to that of the ox, in Malay coun- 
tries, is evidently a prejudice bequeathed to modern times by a 
period when cow-beef was as much an abomination to Malays as it 
is to the Hindus of India at the present day. This is not admitted 
or suspected by ordinary Malays, who would probably have some 
reason, based on the relative wholesomeness of buffalo and cow- 
beef, to allege in defence of their preference of the latter to the 
former. 


ANIMALS. 


The wild animals which inhabit the forests of the Penimsula have 
naturally enough an important place in the folklore of the Malays. 
The tiger is sometimes believed to be a man or demon in the form 
of a wild beast, and to the numerous aboriginal superstitions which 
attach to this dreaded animal, Muhammadanism has added the notion 
which connects the tiger with the Khalif Arr. One of Att’s titles 
throughout the Moslem world is “the victorious Lion of the Lord,” 
and in Asiatic countries where the lion is unknown, the t/ger 
generally takes the place of the king of beasts. 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 23 


The bear is believed to be the mortal foe of the tiger, which he 
sometimes defeats in single combat. (Bruang, the Malay word 
for “bear,” has a curious resemblance to our word “ Bruin.”) A 
story is told of a tame bear which a Malay left in charge of his 
house and of his sleeping child while he was absent from home. 
On his return, he missed his child, the house was in disorder as if 
some struggle had taken place, and the bear was covered with 
bool. MHastily drawing the conclusion that the bear had killed 
and devoured the child, the enraged father slew the animal with 
his spear, but almost immediately afterwards be found the carcase 
of a tiger, which the faithful bear had defeated and killed, and the 
child emerged unharmed from the jungle where she had taken 
refuge. It is unnecessary to point out the similarity of this story 
to the legend of Beth-Gelert.** It is evidently a local version of 
the story of the Ichneumon and the Snake in the Pancha-tantra. 

A mischievous tiger is said sometimes to have broken loose from 
its pen or fold (pechah kandang). This is in allusion to an ex- 
traordinary belief that, in parts of the Peninsula, there are regular 
enclosures where tigers possessed by human souls live in associa- 
tion. During the day they roam where they please, but return to 
the kandang at night ! 

The superstitious dread entertained by Malays for the larger 
animals, is the result of ideas regarding them, which have been 
inherited from the primitive tribes of Hastern Asia. Muhammad- 
anism has not been able to stamp out the deep-rooted feelings which 
prompted the savage to invest the wild beasts which he dreaded 
with the character of malignant deities. The tiger, elephant, and 
rhinoceros were not mere brutes to be attacked and destroyed. The 
immense advantages which their strength and bulk gave them over 
the feebly armed savage of the most primitive tribes, naturally 
suggested the possession of supernatural powers ; and propitiation, 
not force, was the system by which it was hoped to repel them. 
The Malay addresses the tiger as Datoh (grand-father), and 
believes that many tigers are inhabited by human souls. Though 
he reduces the elephant to subjection, and uses him as a beast of 


¥* Similar Gelert stories are current in Sind. Burroy—Sind Re-visited, IT., 
89, 303. 


24 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS, 


burden, it is universally believed that the observance of particular 
ceremonies, and the repetition of prescribed formulas, are necessary 
before wild elephants can be entrapped and tamed. Some of these 
spells and charms (mantra) are supposed to have extraordinary 
potency, and | have in my possession a curious collection of them, 
regarding which, it was told me seriously by a Malay, that in con- 
sequence of their being read aloud in his house three times, all the 
hens stopped laying! The spells in this collection are nearly all 
in the Siamese language, and there is reason to believe that the 
modern Malays owe most of their ideas on the subject of taming 
and driving elephants to the Siamese. ‘Those, however, who had 
no idea of making use of the elephant, but who feared him as 
an enemy, were doubtless the first to devise the idea of influencing 
him by invocations. This idea is inherited, both by Malays and 
Siamese, from common ancestry. 

In the case of the crocodile, again, we find an instance of a dan- 
gerous animal being regarded by Malays as possessed of mysterious 
powers, which distinguish him from most of the brute creation, and 
class him with the tiger and clephant. Just as in some parts of 
India sacred crocodiles are protected and fed in tanks set apart for 
them by Hindus, so in Malay rivers here and there, particular cro- 
codiles are considered kramat (sacred), and are safe from moles- 
tation. On a river in the interior of Malacca, I have nad my gun- 
barrels knocked up when taking aim at a crocodile, the Malay who 
did it immediately falling on his knees in the bottom of the boat 
and entreating forgiveness on the ground that the individual rep- 
tile aimed at was kramat, and that the speaker's family would not 
be safe if it were injured. The source of ideas like this lies far 
deeper in the Malay mind than his Muhammadanism, but the new 
creed has, in many instances, appropriated and accounted for them, 
The connection of the tiger with Au, the uncle of the prophet, has 
already been explained. A grosser Muhammadan fable has been 
invented regarding the crocodile. 

This reptile, say the Pcrak Malays, was first created in the fol- 
lowing manner :— 

There was once upon atime a woman called Putri Padang Ge- 
rinsing, Whose petitions found great favour and acceptance with the 
Almighty. She it was who had the care of Sri J',tima, thie 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS, 2d 


daughter of the prophet. One day she took some clay and 

fashioned it into the likeness of what is now the crocodile. The 

material on which she moulded the clay was a sheet of upih (the 

sheath of the betel-nut palm). This became the covering of the 

crocodile’s under-surface. When she attempted to make the mass 

breathe it broke in pieces. This happened twice. Now it chanced 
that the Tuan Putri had just been eating sugar-cane, so she ar- 
ranged a number of sugar-cane joints to serve as a backbone, and 
the peelings of the rind she utilised as ribs. On its head she placed 
a sharp stone and she made eyes out of bits of saffron (huniet) ;. 
the tail was made of the mid-rib and leaves of a betel-nut frond. 
She prayed toGod Almighty that the creature might have life, and 
it at once commenced to breathe and move. For a long time it 

was.a plaything of the prophet’s daughter, Sirr Farima, but it at 
length became treacherous and faithless to Tuan Purri Papane 
GERINSING, who had grown old and feeble. Then Farrma cursed it 
saying: “Thou shalt be the crocodile of the sea, no enjoyment shall 
be thine, and thou shalt not know lust or desire.” She then de- 
prived it of its teeth aud tongue, and drove nails into its jaws to 
close them. It is these nails which serve the croccdile as teeth to 
this day. 

Malay Pawanes in Pérak observe the following methods of pro- 
ceeding when it is desired to hook a crocodile. To commence with, 
a white fowl must be slain in the orthodox way by cutting its 
throat, and some of its blood must be rubbed on the line (usually 
formed of rattan) to which the fowl itself is attached as bait. The 
dying struggles of the fowl in the water are closely watched and 
conclusions are drawn from them as to the probable behaviour of 
the crocodile when hooked. If the fowl goes to a considerable 
distance, the crocodile will most likely endeavour to make off, but 
it will be otherwise if the fowl moves a little way only up and 
down, or across the stream. When the line is set, the following 
spell must be repeated: “ Aur Dangsari kamala sari, sambut 
kivim Tuan Putri Padang Gerinsing tidak di sambut mata angkau 
chabut.” (‘‘O Dangsari, lotus, flower, receive what is sent thee by 
the Lady Princess Padang Gerinsing; if thou receivest it not, may thy 
eyes be torn out”). As the bait is thrown into the water the oper- 
ator must blow oun it three times, stroke it three times, and thrice 


42 = 
26 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


repeat the following sentence, with his teeth closed and without 
drawing breath: “ Kun kata Allah sapaya kun kata Muhammad 
tab paku.” (“ Kun saith God, so kun saith Muhammad; nail be 
fixed”). Other formulas are used during other stages of the pro- 
ceedings. | 

The deer (vusa) is sometimes believed to be the metamorphosed 
body of a man who has died of an abscess in the lee (chabuk), 
because it has marks on the legs which are supposed to resemble 
those caused by the disease mentioned. Of course, there are not 
wanting men ready to declare that the body of a man who has died 
of chabuk has been seen to rise from the grave and to go away into 
the forest in the shape of a deer. 

It is lucky to keep cats. The essentially selfish nature of this 
animal is recognised by the Malays, who say that it always longs 
for the prosperity of its master, a consummation likely to give it a 
larger and softer cushion to lie upon! The dog, on the other hand, 
is unlucky. He longs for the death of his master, an event which 
will involve the slaying of animals at the funeral feast, when the 
bones will fall to the dogs. When a dog is heard howling at night 
he is supposed to be thinking of the broken bones (nat handak 
mengutid tulang patah). 

Many Malays refuse to eat the fresh-water fish called ckan beli- 
duh on the plea that it was originally a cat. They declare that it 
squalls like a cat when harpooned, and that its bones are very 
white and fine like a cat’s hairs. Similarly, the zkan tumuli is 
believed to be a human being who has been drowned in the river, 
and the ikan kalul to be a monkey transformed. Some specially- 
favoured observers have seen monkeys half through the process of 
metamorphosis—half-monkey and half-fish ! 


MiIscELLANEOUS. 


To be long in getting up after a meal, is said to be a bad omen. 
It means that the person, if unmarried, will meet with a bad recep- 
tion from his or her parents-in-law hereafter. The Malay saying 
in the vernacular is “Lambat bangket deri tampat makan, lambat 
di-tegur mentuwak.” 

Clothes which have been nibbled by rats or mice must not be 
worn again. They are sure to bring misfortune, and are generally 
given away in charity. , 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. Pati 


If vain falls on a wedding day, Malays in some districts say that 
either the bride or bridegroom must have been. eating out of the 
stewpan (makan dalam kuali ). When a Malay dinner is served, 
the younger members of the family sometimes amuse themselves 
by throwing rice into the pan from which the curry has just been 

taken, stirring it round in the gravy that remains, and then eating 
it. This is not permitted when one of them is to be married on the 
following day, as it would be sure to bring rainy weather. 

It is unlucky for a child to lie on his face (menyehrap) and 
kick his feet together in the air (menyabong kaki). It betokens 
that either his father or mother will die. A child seen doing this 
is instantly rebuked and stopped. 

When a star is seen in apparent proximity to the moon, old 
people say there will be a wedding shortly. The wide-spread 
superstition about the man in the moon is found among the Malays. 
They discover in the moon an old man sitting under a beringin tree 
(the banyan, ficus indica ). 

The entrance into a house of an animal which does not generally 
seek to share the abode of man, is regarded by the Malays as omin- 
ous of misfortune. Ifa wild bird flies into a house, it must be care- 
fully caught and smeared with oil, and must then be released in 
the open air, a formula being recited in which itis bidden to fly 
away with all the ill-luck and misfortunes (sia! jambalang) of ihe 
occupier. An iguana, a tortoise, and a snake are perhaps the most 
dreaded of these unnatural visitors. They are sprinkled with 
ashes, if possible, to counteract their evil influence. 

A swarm of bees settling near a house is an unlucky omen and 
prognosticates misfortune. 

‘The evil eye is dreaded by Malays. Not only are particular 
persons supposed to be possessed of a quality which causes ill-luck 
to accompany their glance (the malocchio of the Italians), but the 
influence of the evil eye is often supposed to affect children,* who 
are taken notice of by people kindly disposed towards them. For 
instance, it is unlucky to remark on the fatness and healthiness of 


* See Lane’s Modern Heyptians, I, 77; also the same author’s translation of 
the Thousand and One Nights, Chapter IV., notes 24 and 44,where, in evidence 
of the antiquity of this super stition, he quotes a well-known line of V irgil : — 

*“Nesvio quis teneros oculis mihi fascinat agnos.’ 


28 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 


a baby, anda Malay will employ some purely nonsensical word, 
or convey his meaning in a roundabout form, rather than incur 
possible misfortune by using the actual word “fat.” “ Ai bukan 
-nia poh-poh gental budak ini” (“Isn't this child nice and round 2”) 
is the sort of phrase which is permissible. 

If a woman dies in child-birth, either before delivery, or after 
the birth of a child and before the forty days of uncleanness have 
»xpired, she is popularly supposed to become a langsuyar, a flymg 
demon of the nature of the “white lady” or “banshee.” To pre- 
vent this, the following precautions are sometimes taken in Pérak : 
a quantity of glass beads are put in the mouth of the corpse, a hen’s 
egg is put under each arm-pit and needles are placed in the palms 
of the hands. It is believed that if this is done the dead woman 
cannot become a langsuyar, as she cannot open her mouth to 
shriek (ngilai), or wave her arms as wings, or open and shut her 
hands to assist her flight. 

Bujang (“ single,” “solitary,” and hence in a secondary sense 
‘un-married”) is the Sanskrit word bhwangga “a dragon”. 
“ Bujang Malaka,” a mountain in Pérak, is said by the Malays of 
that State to have been so called because it stands alone, and could 
be seen from the sea by traders who plied im old days between the 
the Pérak river and the once-flourishing port of Malacca. But it 
is just as likely to have been named from some forgotten legend im 
which a dragon played a part. Dragons and mountains are gene- 
rally connected in Malay ideas. The caves in the limestone hill, Gu- 
nong Pondok, in Pérak, are said to be haunted by a genius loci in 
the form of a snake who is popularly called Si Bujang. This seems 
to prove beyond doubt the identity of bujang with bhujangga. The 
snake-spirit of Gunong Pondok is sometimes as small as a viper 
and sometimes as large as a python, but he may always be identi- 
fied by his spotted neck, which resembles that of the wood-pigeon 
(tekukur ). Wandslips on the mountains, which are tolerably fre- 
quent during very heavy rains, and which, being produced by the 
same cause, are often simultaneous with the flooding of rivers and 
the destruction of property, are attributed by the natives to the 
sudden breaking forth of dragons (naga) which have been perform- 
ing religious penance (ber-tapa) * in the mountains, and which are 


making their way to the sea. 


* Sanskrit tapasya, 


FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 29 


The foregoing are only a few specimens of the legends, sayings, 
superstitions, and peculiarities of the Malays, which may be col- 
lected by any one whois resident among them and conversant with 
their language. Though, in many instances, they are puerile and 
foolish, they are not without value for the sake of comparison with 
the superstitious beliefs of other races. 

‘There would be more observers of curious customs and beliets 
among the Malays if Englishmen in these latitudes would get out 
of the habit of regarding the Malays simply as a Muhammadan 
people inhabiting the countries in the vicinity of the Straits of 
Malacca. Let them regard the Muhammadanism of the Malay as 
an accident not to be taken into account in studying the character 
and tracing the origin of the people. The Asiatic Malay is physi- 
cally the same, from Sumatra eastward to Borneo, and many legends, 
customs, and superstitions which are found among the heathen 
Bataks of Sumatra, the wild tribes of the Peninsula, and the Dayaks 
of Borneo, belong equally to the more civilised Malay tribes, those 
who have accepted Muhammadanism, and who, on that account, are 
popularly and erroneously supposed to be a different race. 


hay — a SANA AEBE AO 


NOTES ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 
BY J. J. L. WHEATLEY. 


——:0:—— 


The amount of Rainfall in Singapore having been a topic very 
frequently discussed, it is with some diffidence the accompanying 
tables are submitted. Any one who applies himself to the study 
of this subject, cannot but feel, at the very threshold cf his labours, 
how little he has to help him, and how difficult it is to arrive at any 
definite conclusion. 

For some years back, I have tried to collect as much information 
as was possible on the rainfall of this Settlement, but find that 
very little indeed can be done in this matter. Whatever records 
of rainfall may have been kept in times past, all that are at pre- 
sent available, are :— 

1.—Statements of the number of rainy days in each year, 
from 1820 to 1825. 

2.—A Statement of Rainfall for the year 1835. 

3.—Observations made at the Singapore Observatory, for 
the years 1841 to 1844, and for the first nine months 
of 1845. 

4.—After a large gap of seventeen years, Mr. J. D. 
VauGcuHan’s Observations, from 1862 to 1866, whose 
returns were published quarterly in the local Govern- 

© ment Gazette. 

5.—Meteorological Observations, which were commenced 
by the late Dr. Raypext, Principal Civil Medical 
Officer, Straits Settlements, in 1869, and which are 
maintained to the present time. The Monthly Re- 
turns of these were published for many years in the 
Government Gazette, but of late years they have been 
discontinued. The P. C. M. O., however, supplies the - 

press, public institutions, &c., with a yearly copy of 

Monthly Returns, both of Meteorological Observa- 


32 ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 


tions, and of the Rainfall, which is now registered at 
seven stations. Annual Returns are also to be found 
in the Blue Books. 

6.—Lastly, but not least, a Register of Rainfall kept by 
Mr. A. Kyiaut, since 1864, at Mount Pleasant, 
Thompson Road (about three miles distant from 
Town), and I must here express my deep obligation to 
him for his kindness in supplying me with the required 
information, and for revising the Tables of his range. 

Though the rainfall at Singapore is now registered at seven 
stations, it is not intended to notice the whole of them, nor to act 
on the means of the total registered rainfall, but only to take the 
returns of the Criminal Prison, extending over a period of twelve 
years, as a register of rainfall in the town; and Mr. Knieut’s 
returns, extending over a period of seventeen years, as a register 
of rainfall in the country; as they are the two best sources of 
information for the consideration of this question. 

From time to time, letters have appeared in the local newspaper, 
asserting that the extensive clearing of forests in Singapore, and 
the adjoining mainland of Johor has materially affected the rain- 
fall. In proof of this, the experience of the “ oldest inhabitant” is 
appealed to, to bear testimony to the incessant daily fall of rain of 
former years, and the conclusion is hence drawn, that the rainfall 
will be altogether suspended if something be not, without delay, 
undertaken to stop this disafforestment of the island and peninsula. 

It is not the object of the writer to enter into any lengthy discus- 
sion on this point. The sole object of this compilation of tables is, to 
bring together sources of information on this subject which are of 
value, but are now scattered, extending over many books and 
Gazettes, buried out of sight, and thus practically lost for conve- 
nient reference and research under this head in the future. 

But, it may be safely advanced, that Singapore is not dependent 
on its extent of forests, or contiguity to forests, for its rain supply, 
but to its geographical position. In the Journal of the Indian 
Archipelago, vol. 2, page 457, Dr. Lirrue, wiiting on the Medical 
Topography of Singapore so far back as 1848—thirty-three years 
ago,—gives the average annual rainfall as being 92.697 inches; 
arriving at this conclusion from the records of the Singapore 


ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 33 


Observatory during 1841 ‘to 1844—a period of four consecutive 
years; and the average annual number of wet days was set down 
at 185 days, or a little over one-half the year, this last conclusion 
being drawn from the observations of broken periods as below :—- 
During 1820 there were 229 wet days* 
ih 1821 i) 23 
Oa ts24 133 


yp) 


” 1825 H 171 


99 


9 


9 


(st) 


185 average of 4 years, 
but searching for information on this point, I am enabled to fill up 
the break, and we have:— 


During 1520 there were 229 wet days 
Po Sor \ 908°, 


, 1822 i TM 
1803 : 0S 
1824. : isa 

» 1825 i pilings 
Digs ee 


giving 194 as the average of 6 years. 


It would appear, that during the early days of the Settlement, 
which only dates from 1819, from want of a rain guage (due to 
the difficulties attendant on first occupation, and of getting things 
from India), all that was attempted, was, to keep a register of the 
readings of the thermometer and barometer (which every ship 
carried), and a note only made of the number of fair days and wet 
days. Whe earliest record of a register of rainfall that can be 
traced is that of 1835. 


It is, however, interesting to note that the accepted average an- 
nual rainfall of 1841 to 1844, has not been affected notwithstand- 
ing the extensive clearing of forest that must have taken place 
during the past forty years, for the average of Mr. Kwiaut’s regis- 
ter (Table III.) keeps a little above it, viz., 93.94 inches, while the 


*By wet or rainy days, is understood days on which rain in more or less 
varying quantities from one-hundredth of an inch has been registered. 


34 ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 


average of the Prison register is more markedly in excess, being 
99.96 inches (Table II.). The average annual number of wet 
days, as will be seen from Tables LV. and V., has only to a small 
extent been diminished in the Prison Register, but exceeded in Mr 
Knieut’s. That there are seasons of marked falling off of the 
rainy season, is noticeable so early as 1824; and the order of their 
recurrence is worth studying. The smallest number of wet days, 
as recorded, is 109 in 1877, during which year, as will be seen on 
referring to Table VIII., the second half of the South-West mon- 
soon was almost a complete failure, while the greatest number of 
wet days in recent years was 212 days in 187i, and 244 in 1879 at 
Mr. Kyteant’s place: this last even exceeding that given for 1820. 


The heavy falls of rain do not appear to be confined to any par- 
ticular month. They are most frequent during the first half of 
the North-East monsoon, that is, the months of November, De- 
cember and January. There are no recorded heavy rainfalls for 
February or July, and, but for one instance recorded by Mr. 
VauaGuan, none in March also. These are best shown as below :— 


Mr. Vavauan’s| Prison | Mr. Kyraut’s 
register.. register. register. 

January, ... | i 2 Bt 
February, ... | at 

March, _... | 1 

April, Hare il auc aka Il 
May, al te | ame 2 
June, ied sa | ‘ap oi 
July, yh ig yr | es 
August, ...| sb | a 2 
September, .. | ee | aia il 
October, ... | Ai | Ly aac Vy 
November, .. | ae: | Y | i 
December, .. | 2 | Bf | 5 


J 

Droveuts.—This word must be used guardedly, and can only 
apply ina limited sense. I have, therefore, shown it in Tables VI. 
and VII. as the greatest consecutive number of days without rain in 
each month. According to Table VI., the greatest interval without 


ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORF. 35 


rain has been only seventeen days; but in considering this, allow- 
ance has to be made liberally ; for instance, from the 22nd Septem- 
ber, 1877, to 8th October, there was no rain, but between 9th and 
23rd October, there were small drizzlings of rain, viz. :— 

Onthe 9th to the extent of 0.09 inches. 


Se 10th Ae 0.03 ,, 
ive) 14th is 0s, 
a 22nd 0:05, 


the first shower being on 28rd, when 0.35 was registered, so that 
though there were days of small droppings of rain which inter- 
vened, the season of dryness was actually from 22nd September to 
23rd October; and, in like manner, other instances may be adduced. 
But even with this drawback, these tables will, I think, be found of 
value, as they give a fair representation. The greatest interval 
without rain ranging from 7 to 17 days in town, and from 7 to 
23 days in the country. 

It is not possible to obtain information of this nature from 
condensed annual tabulated statements of former years. Mr. 
VauauHan’s are the earliest available for this sort of analysis, and 
from them I gather, that the longest interval recorded by him as 
being without rain, was from 27th January to 2nd March, 1864, 
or 35 days ; during which period zo rainfall was registered, though 
on the 23rd and 26th February there was a “small sprinkling,” 
but nothing appreciable by the gauge. Mr. Kxyraut, whose register 
commences at this time, also notes this extended drought of 35 days, 
the showers registered during this interval being two, viz., one to 
the extent of 0.03 inches, and the other to the extent of 0.14 
inches, this last only reaching Mr. Vaueuan, at River Valley Road, 
as a “small sprinkling,” not appreciable. Mr. Kyteut, in a note 
when returning his tables which were sent for his revision says: 
“ Your table has the disadvantage of not showing droughts when 
“they extend from one month to another.” This is fully admitted, 
and, as explained above, the tables are only to give an idea of the 
ordinary number of consecutive days without rain. 

Seasons.—In 1874, the late Dr. Ranpetz, P. C. M. O., in sub- 
mitting his Meteorological Report for 1873, proposed that, for the 
sake of convenience, the year should be divided into three periods 
of four months each; which he designated as variable for the first 
third, dry for the second third, and wet for the remaining portion. 


36 ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 


With all deference for the opinion thus expressed, I am sure it 
will be evident to all who consider the subject, that the wisest plan 
is not to force or mould natural operations to artificial arrange- 
ments, but by studying Nature’s plans, and, basing our calculations 
thereon, to get some insight (small though it be) into the wondrous 
and wise laws which govern this world. 


We find one great influence at work, viz., the Monsoons, and in 
any observations from which correct inferences are intended to be 
drawn, this must not be lost sight of. The difficulty that one meets, 
at the very beginning of this enquiry, arises from the questions— 
“When do the monsoons commence?” “Is there 2 fixed day?” 
“ How are they governed?” Mavry, in his Physical Geography of 
the Sea, says: “ Monsoons are, for the most part, trade winds deflect- 
“ed, when, at stated seasons of the year, a trade wind is turned out 
“of its regular course, as from one quadrant to another, it is regarded 
“as a monsoon.” What then is the stated season? This has engaged 
the attention of many; the “ Wiseman” said “ The wind goeth toward 
“the South, and turneth about unto the North; it whirleth about 
“ continually, and the wind returneth again according to his cireuits ;” 
but, when that stated season actually commences, is still beyond our 
telling. 

The monsoons we have to deal with, are the North-East and 
South-West. To quote again from Maury: “ A force is exerted 
“upon the North-East trade winds of that sea by the disturbance 
“which the heat of summer creates in the atmosphere over the inte. 
“jor plains of Asia, which is more than sufficient to neutralize the 
“forces which cause those winds to blow as trade-winds, it arrests 
“them and turns them back.” ‘“ These remarkable winds blow over 
“all that expanse of Northern water that lies between Africa and 
“the Philippine islands. Throughout this vast expanse, the winds 
“ that are known in other parts of the world as the North-East trades 
“are here called monsoons, because, instead of blowing from that 
“quarter for twelve months as in other seas, they only blow for six, 
“During the remaining six months they are turned back as it were, 
“for instead of blowing towards the Equator, they blow away from 
“it, and instead of North-East trades we have South-West monsoon.” 

But, although the day of the commencement of either monsoon 
is not a fixed one, as far as is at present known, there is a time 


ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 37 


when there is a turn, a “backing down” and “back to back” of 
the North-East and South-West winds, which differs, of course, 
according to latitude. In higher latitudes, the North-East monsoon 
may be said to have fairly set in during October, but for our low 
latitude it may roughly be put down as being established only in 
November. From November tothe end of January, the North-East 
wind is blowing steadily ; from February to April the struggle be- 
tween North-East and South-West monsoons commences, and the 
result is variable breezes; from May to July, the South-West 
monsoon is the prevailing wind, losing its steadiness from August, 
till it is lost again in the next North-East monsoon by the end of 
October.* 

Acting, therefore, on this natural division of seasons, a table has 
been prepared shewing the rainfall of each quarter (Table VIII.) 
thus arranged, and it will be noticeable, that the fall of the first 
portion of the North-East monsoon is (with only one exception in 
eleven years registration) uniformly greater than the corresponding 
portion of the South-West monsoon; while the second half of the 
North-East monsoon is Jess than the corresponding season of the 
South-West; and that the fall of rain for the entire North-East 
monsoon is on the whole greater than that during the entire South- 
West: which may perhaps be accounted for by the North-East 
monsoon. coming over a large watery expanse, unbroken by any high 
lands, whereas the rain-bearing clouds of the South-West monsoon 
are intercepted to a great extent by the island of Sumatra in our 
Southern and Western vicinity. 

Under the present limited knowledge of Meteorology, it is al- 
most impossible to lay down definite rules for guidance in making 
forecasts of weather except with the aid of the telegraph.t Men 
of science with skilfully arranged, delicate, sensitive instruments 
to detect every change of weather, &c., have devoted many years to 
its study, only to find themselves baffled. The Astronomer is far 


* If it were possible to keep a constant hourly register of the windas re- 
gards its direction, &c., the duration of each monsoon, and the changings from 
one to the cther would be better understood. 


¥ In /merica (United States) andin Europe, telegraphic reports of the state 
of the weather from various parts are received hourly at the head offices, and 
sometimes preparations can be made against impending bad weather. Some 
years back, a proposal was made from Amoy to arrange for a daily telegraphic 
report from Singapore and Batavia, but it has not come to anything. 


38 ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 


ahead of the Meteorologist, in that he can foretell with wonderful 
precision the movements of the stars and planets, proving thereby 
of great assistance to the navigator, who determines his position 
at sea, by night as well as by day, with the aid of the carefully - 
prepared tables of the Nautical Almanac. 


The Astronomer knows what influences the planets bear on one 
another, and on this globe; singly, or in conjunction during their 
movements through space; but the Meteorologist is still only on 
the borders of the vast unknown, and cannot compete with the 
Astronomer; he is still only a recorder of events passing and 
past, and not a diviner of events to come. Though the barometer 
is, in some latitudes, a faithful monitor, too often, the change pre- 
dicted comes about faster than it was anticipated, and he is left 
only to register that which has happened. 


Notwithstanding all that has been done to get together such 
information as may help to unravel the mystery of the laws which 
govern Nature, there is much more still wanting; but we may en- 
tertain the hope, that in the perhaps not distant future, by the aid 
of faithfully recorded meteorological registers which at present 
seem of little value, some Kepner or NEwron will yet arise, and 
discover the effects of solar spots, and the influences of the celestial 
objects on our atmosphere from without ; and the workings of this 
vast globe, generating, and maintaining electricity, magnetism and 
and a host of other operations from within,* causes which operate 
no doubt in some recurrent order, guided and governed by solar 
and lunar cycles.+| We may hope, that when it is understood how 
these causes act and react on one another, certain rules will be 


#In Astronomy, KEPLER in 1609-1618 could never have arrived at the conclu- 
sions known as his LAWS, but for the labours of Tyco BRraunE, who, about fifty years 
previously, laboured to collect a large amount of correct, trustworthy, facts unin- 
teresting perhaps to many, butinvaluable to Kgrner. With theadvantage of the 
labours of these two, NEWTON, about fifty years later, was enab‘ed to announce his 
Laws of Gravitation and the movements of the planets, &c., in their orbits ; laws 
which have proved to be so correct, that about a hundred and fifty years later, 
with the Laws of NEwTon as the basis of operation, ADAMS in England, and 
LEVERBIER in France, fixed the position of an unknown disturber of the move- 
ments of Uranus, and discovered it to be the planet which has been named 
Neptune. 

+ Herr ScowaBz of Dessau calculates the recurrent cycles of Solar Spots at 
eleven years. <A solar eycle is 28 vears, and a lunar cycle 19 years. 


ON THE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 39 


framed, as has been done for the Astronomer, whereby that which 
now appears dark, doubtful and difficult, will be made clear, certain 
and simple; and the perils of the navigator at sea, the devastating 
effects of hurricanes on land, and the distress and want of famines 
will be foreseen and provided against with certainty. 

Admiral Frrzroy, in his Weather Book, says: “ Having accurate 
“statistical observations of the various currents of air at selected 
“ outlying stations shewing pressure or tension, temperature and rela- 
“tive dryness, with the direction and estimated horizontal force of 
“wind at each place simultaneously, the dynamic consequences are 
“already measurable approximately on geometric principles, and, 
“judging by the past, there appears to be reasonable ground tor 
“expectation that meteorologic dynamics will soon be subjected to 
“mathematical analysis and accurate formulas.” And again: “ Certain 
“at is, that although our conclusions may be incorrect and our jude- 
“ment erroneous, the laws of Nature and the signs afforded to man 
“are invariably true. Accurate interpretation is the real deficiency.” 


It appears from superficial observations, and the inferences one 
can draw from having only a very faint idea of this subject, that 
until at least there are trustworthy records of periods extending 
over two or three solar cycles, it would be futile to hazard, even by 
euessing, a rule by which the Rainfall of Singapore can be calcu- 
lated upon. If, therefore, this Society will endeavour to collect 
all possibly accurate returns of the rainfall, &c., it will be doing 
ereat service to those who may study the Meteorology of this part 
of the world from the tables thus preserved, when this generation 
shall have passed away. 

Nothing in this paper is intended to dispute or question the 
accepted and well known fact, that disafforestment of a country 
does bring about a change of climate by diminishing rainfall, but 
before concluding, it would be well to urge, for the consideration 
of those who may be interested, the advisability of providing 
against another result of extensive clearings of forests, viz., the 
failure of the supply of fuel, not to speak of the timber supply 
for building, &e., in the future. If disafforestment does not 
influence the rainfall of this Settlement, it will certainly have some 
inflpence on the supply for the above-mentioned demands. The 
number of local steam engines on land and at sea, consuming large 


4.0 ON TILE RAINFALL OF SINGAPORE. 


quantities of firewood daily and the wants of an increasing popula- 
tion, will, in time, tell on the supply, and it 1s the incumbent duty 
of the present occupants, and of the Government too, to make due 
provision for the indispensable wants of those yet to come, by 


planting many of the hillsides, now entirely denuded of vegeta- 


tion, with suitable forest trees * 


+______ 


* T cannot sufficiently express mv thanks for the convenience of having 
c : ton] 


access to the valuable books of 1cference in the Raffles Library and t» the books of 
the Logan Library for much of the information gleaned therefrom. 


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JOURNAL 
OF A VOYAGE THROUGH THE 
STRAITS OF MALACCA 


ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE 


POLUCCA ISLANDS. 


UNDER THE COMMAND OF 
PYHOWITRAL, RAINIER 


WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF TIHOSE ISLANDS AT THE TIME OF THEIR 
FALLING INTO OUR HANDS, AND LIKEWISE SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE 
TO THEIR FULTURE BETTER MANAGEMENT IN CASE OF BEING 
RETAINED IN OUR PERMANENT POSSESSION, 


BY 


Cee TAIN WALTER CAULFIELD LENNON, 


PRINCIPAL ENGINEER AND SECRETARY TO THE EXPEDITION. 


1796. 


_——— 
<= — 


Madras, October 12th, 1795. J this day embarked on His Ma- 
jesty’s ship Suffolk as Principal Engineer and Secretary to the 
Expedition. 

15th —Sceventy-cight minute guns were this day fired from the 
Fort and Suffolk on account of the death of Wis Highness the 
Nabob of Arcott, who departed this life last night. 

14th —Threatening appearances of a gathering monsoon, heavy 
rain with violent thunders and lehtning. A royal salute was 


fired on account of the capture of Malacca, the intelligence of 


which arrived this morning. 


52 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 
Madras to Pulo Penang. 


15th—The Admiral having come on board this day we sailed 
about 5 in the afternoon in company with the Centurion, Arniston, 
Indiaman, Surprize, galley, and Mary, transport. 

1Sith.— By the chronometer and meridian observations we seem 
to have had a current a little to the North-East, exactly contrary 
to what it is natural to expect at this season. 

19th.—Some signs of discontent appeared amongst the soldiers 
on board, on account of the difference of their victualling from the 
sailors, but were soon put a stop to. 

22ud—These last three days, observations confirm the opinion 
of a North-East current of about 14’ per day. Received a copy of 
signals for the Military, which was communicated to the different 
CcOrps. 

28th.—A vast deal of rain with short squalls and very close 
weather in general. One of the soldiers detected in stealing was 
punished by the Naval Articles of War. 

29th.—Light winds and hazy weather, very extraordinary rip- 
plines for these two days, we meet them in a line of turbulent 
waves at the distance of about a mile from each other, extending 
from Nort-Hast to South-West as far as we can see. Two large 
ships appeared in sight to-day standing to the Northward, which 
seemed to be Indiamen bound to Bengal. 

November 2nd,—Carnicobar plainly in view this morning. From 
its bearing and distance when sights were taken for the chronome- 
ter this morning, the Longitude of that island appears to be 11° 
58’ Hast of Madras Observatory, or in 92° 19’ East of Greenwich ; 
Latitude, North end, 9° 18’. 

11th.—¥or two days after we lost sight of the Carnicobar, we 
had a great sett to the Southward, 80! or 90’ ahead of our reckoning, 
by which we made Pulo Lando unexpectedly, and next day Pulo 
Way, with the mainland of Sumatra. From thence we found a 
strong current against us out of the Straits of Malacca, so much 
so that, though for the last four days we have been working to the 
Eastward, with intervals of favourable winds, we have lost in 
Longitude by the chronometer since the 8th. We now find a 
strong North-Westerly current out of the straits, very hard rain 


EXPEDITION TO MOTUCCA ISLANDS. Be 


with violent squalls attended with thunders and lightning. 

18th.—Last night the Centurion made the signal for seeing land, 
on which we lay to; it proved, as we supposed to be, Pulo Pera, a 
small island quite bare, with good soundings all round. Last night 
a soldier of Captain Mrviu’s company died, and our sick list 
amounts to 78. About 3 p.m. we made Pulo Penang, but the wind 
falling scant, we anchored in 7 fathoms water off the North-West 
point. 

14th.— Scarce any wind at all. We weighed anchor about 10 
o’clock and with the tide crossed over the long flat shoal which lays 
off the North part of the island, on which we had only 43 fathoms wa- 
ter, but the bottom is soft mud, and as this happened to be low water 
at the lowest tides here, and the water always smooth, it can never 
be dangerous. Captain Newcomer of the Orpheus and Captain 
PackENHAM of the I?es/stance came on board and dined with us. 
We did not get.to our anchors in the harbour until 4 o’clock. The 
Swift, sloop, with Major Vreors, who is to command the land 
troops of our expedition, arrived this evening from Madras, which 
she left the 24th ultimo. Learned this day from the Admiral the 
manner of getting possession of Malacca, and the intention of an- 
nulling the present Government. 


Pulo Penang. 


15th —Went ashore this day with the Admiral, who introduced 
me to Mr. Mayyineron, the Chief, and other gentlemen of the 
Island. This day received information of the whole state of 
affairs at Malacca, and the chief objects of our present expedition. 
Dined and spent the evening with Captain Grass. 

16th—We this day had a large party at Mr. Scorr’s. This 
gentleman has lived here since the first establishment of the Island. 
He had formerly been a Captain in the country trade, but being 
unfortunate, was obliged to lve chiefly amongst the Malays, on 
the Island Junkceylon. He has since made a handsome fortune, 
and very honorably discharged all his former debts. His house is 
built of wood in the Malay fashion upon posts raised about 5 feet 
from the ground. Several of the houses here are built in the same 
way, which, however well adapted to the situation Malays in 


ie 


5A: , EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS, 


general are fond of, over swamps, or water, and always near it, 
does not appear to be the most secure or convenient for Nuropeans. 

22nd,—Finding iny time likely to be short here, 1 spent the last 
five or six days in riding about the Island to see every part of it 
that was accessible, but was unable to accomplish as much as I 
wished, from the weak state of my health. Received notice from 
the Admiral of his intention to proceed to Malacca on Tuesday 
next in the Orpheus with direction to hold myself in readiness to 
attend him. 


23rd,—This morning went to see the waterfall, which is about 


six miles from the town, with a road for carriages for about four 
of the way, the rest I walked, and after climbing the latter part of 
it up a very steep and jungly path, at last arrived at the foot of 
the waterfall, and was exceedingly struck with the grandeur and 
magnificence it exhibited. It is above 3800 feet high and falls in a 
broken cataract from an opening in the hill about half way up 
according to the view. The. scenery round is true nature in its 
most sublime aspect, and with the expense of a little labour in 
clearing away some of the trees about it, would afford one of the 
most beautiful views possible. At present to get a sight of it you 
are obliged to come so near that the effect is almost lost. 

IT am informed by Mr. Maxyryaron that the population of Pulo 
Penang exceeds 20,000 souls, consisting of Chulears, Chinese, Malays, 
Bengallies, Portuguese, and Huropeans ; the first bear the greatest 
proportion in number and are chiefly the boatmen and _ fishers, 
and some of the richest traders are of this cast ; they are originally 
all from the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. The artificers and 
most of the shop-keepers are Chinese, whose daily hire in the 
former capacity is very dear, being half a Spanish dollar per day. 
The persons who are generally employed in clearing the ground 
and cutting down trees for timber are Malays, who work by con- 
tract, and with their little axes with long handles, cut down or sit 
idle at their pleasure. Their manner of cutting differs from what 
is @enerally practised; if the lower part of. the trunk of a tree be 
much thicker, as it for the most part is, than at the height of 6 or 
8 feet, they erect a stage and cut it that height where it is least 
trouble, then clearing away the underwood they take advantage 
of the wind and cutting nearly through several trees in its direc- 


t 
{ 


~ 
— 
_ 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. % 


tion, they fairly fell the first which in its fall brings down all the 
others to leeward of it. After the trees are somewhat dry, they 
are set fire to, but seldom that I could perceive, were entirely 
consumed; very large timbers still lying in the direction they 
chanced to fall. This and the quantity of ground lost by the stumps 
still remaining, if left to nature to decay, as is usually the case, 
impedes the cultivation for not less than six years and sometimes 
ten. Jam, therefore, of opimion that it would be more advantageous 
to dig the trees at first fairly out of the ground, at least to cut all 
the roots that spread, and then ropes fixed to the top could easily 
bring down the trees by tackles attached to the bases of the adjoin- 
ing trees, and when this was insufficient the aid of the axe and 
mamooty could soon effect it. Rice is generally cultivated after the 
wood is cut down, but from the ground not bemg effectually 
cleared there is full a third part of it lost, for at least six years, 
and the standing stumps give it the most barbarous appearance 
possible. The first expense and trouble is greater in the way that 
I conceive best, but the surface gained must more than counter- 
balance it; for in the present manner there is the profit of two 
entire years’ cultivation of the whole lost in the first six years. 
The variety and luxuriance of the trees over this island, as over 
all the Malay islands, is very great, timber very plenty and good; 
but they have no teak, which is the best wood in India; Poon 
grows to an immense size, and one tree large enough for the 
Suffoll’s main mast, for which I am told it was intended, now lays 
upon the beach. | 

The soil about the town itself is sandy and very disagreeable, 
being quite loose sand, or overgrown with a kind of long grass, 
the seeds of which stick in one’s stockings and are very trouble- 
some. The inland part of the island is very high, covered with weod 
and as yet unexplored, except a path which is cut to the signal 
house on the highest point of the island. The pepper plantations 
here flourish extremely well, and I am told that the pepper is of a 
better quality than at Bencoolen, which has diminished in the 
quantity of its produce considerably for some years past. Perhaps 
this circumstance may be the means of encouraging Pulo Penang, 
which it certainly wants very much at present, though it thrives 
fast notwithstanding; but there is a doubt in the minds of the inha- 


56 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 
bitants whether it is to be kept in the hands of the Company, from 
the unjust and extraordinary preference given to the Andamans by 
Admiral Cornwattis, that deters them from embarking any consi- 
derable capitals in clearing the grounds and making plantations 
which require several years before they can derive any material 
returns from. It is, therefore, imagined that it would be much 
more to the advantage of the Company to withdraw the establish- 
ments both of Bencoolen and Andamans and bestow their atten- 
tions on this island: as the general opinion of the Andamans 
proves that it never can answer the idea of Admiral CornwaLuis, 
the propriety of adding the garrison and establishment there to 
Pulo Penang is acknowleged by every person acquainted with its 
situation and the circumstances attending. This addition alone 
would be sufficient encouragement and security to Penang. As to 
Bencoolen, since it is only kept up for the purpose of collecting 
the pepper on the West coast of Sumatra, and seeing that the quan- 
tity produced has gradually diminished for some years past, 1 is a 
question, with very little doubt, if the whole of this pepper would 
not just as certainly be brought to the English at Penang, where 
the Malays could sell it at a price, not so much above the contract 
price of Bencoolen, as to equal the expense of that Settlement now. 
The harbour of Penang is proved to be safe and capable of hold- 
ing all the ships of our Navy in the East, and affording them and 
any other ships every requisite assistance at all times. There is 
now a shipwright established, who built four ships here, and from 
the cheapness of timber, if encouragement was given to artificers, 
ships might be built cheaper here than anywhere in India, and 
docks for the largest ships could be formed almost by the simple 
excavation of the rock of Pulo Juaja* where the Chinese now ma- 
nufacture chunam very cheap and good. It is, therefore, a good 
situation for establishing a Naval Arsenal as the most central to 
all the trade between India and China and all the islands to the 
Eastward, which there are now hopes may be carried to an extent 
much beyond what it has been hitherto, and this in all probability 
could be done without any, or at most a very trifling, expense to the 
Company ; since if they would only avow their encouragement and 
support of the Settlement, in the manner before-mentioned, its 
being continued a free port would secure it such a resource of 


* Jerajah or Jerjah. 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 57 


shipping and trade as would tempt the speculation of individuals 
to these undertakings. The watering of ships at Penang at pre- 
sent is by no means convenient, but might easily be made so, at a 
much less expense than has been proposed by some schemers, whose 
plan I have heard of, but who don’t seem to understand the sub- 
ject ; though perhaps it may some day happen that, being proposed 
by some person with interest, it may become an expensive job to 
the Company without much advantage to the public. 

The Fortis situated in the North-East point of the island, which I 
think the best, but it is in itself so childish a plan and scale, so near 
the sea, so ill-executed, and so crowded on by the town and houses 
adjoining, that ] fancy, to aiford a real security to their possessions, 
it will be found necessary to build another in a different place. I 
am told the best place for the purpose is about six miles 
South, near where the Chinese have their pepper gardens, and 
where there is an inner harbour, which might, as far as I can judge, 
from the plan of it, be improved to the reception of large ships. 
The tree or plant which yields that curious substance, the elastic 
gum, grows here in abundance; its juice, when cut or broken, 
resembles milk, which, when suffered to remain exposed to the air, 
coagulates into the substance we.see it without any chemical 
process whatever. Bullocks and sheep are very scarce and poor 
here; the beef is generally buffalo, chiefly from the opposite shore 
of Queda, and sheep come from Bengal. Poultry are plenty and 
cheap ; the market being supplied by Malay prows, besides what are 
bred on the island, which are every day increasing; vegetables 
are cultivated in great plenty by the Chinese, who, wherever they 
settle, are industrious and orderly. Jam told that there are at 
present for sale in Queda, twenty very fine elephants, which might 
be bought and embarked for 500 Spanish dollars each, which 
would be worth from 1,000 to 1,500 or even 2,000 Pagodas each on 
the coast of Coromandel, this breed of elephants being much more 
esteemed than any in India. Having received orders from the 
Admiral for the embarkation of the troops, communicated the same 
to Major Vicors. 

Pulo Penang to Malacca. 


24th.—This morning embarked with the Admiral on board the 
Orpheus, weighed anchor at 10 o’clock, and sailed through the 


JY 


58 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


southern passage, in which we had rather more water than on the 
flat to the Northward, but the channel is more intricate, though 
perfectly safe with a leading wind. 

25th —Fell in with four China ships bound for Bengal and 
Bombay. By one of the latter we sent despatches to be landed 
at Anjango. We steered South after clearmg the shoal, which 
extends to near Saddle Island, and the 26th made Pulo Jarra. 
We then steered South-Hast, and the next day, 27th, made the Sam- 
belans or Nine Islands. Two more China ships passed us. 28th, 
very light airs, but fine weather; this evening made the Aroas, and 
anchored for the nght. 

29th.—Steering due East fromthe Aroas, we sailed with a fine 
breeze through the Sand Heads to Parcelar Hill, from whence the 
course to Malacca, South-Hast is without danger, Point Rachar- 
do, half way, beg a very safe mark. . All these islands and points 
are like so many mile-stones or guide posts for this little voyage. 


Mataced. 


30th —Our wind very faint and the tide against us for a ereat 
part of this day; we did not anchor in Malacca road until 5 o'clock 
in the evening. Immediately went on shore with the despatches 
from the Admiral intimating his intention to dissolve the Dutch 
Government. 

December 1st.—Went on board this morning to attend the Ad- 
miral, as Mr. Courerus told me last night that the Council intend- 
ed sending a deputation this day on board to compliment His 
Excellency. Shortly after, two members of the Dutch Council and 
an Interpreter came on board, when the business proved a mere 
compliment of congratulation on his arrival and nothing more. 

The Admiral soon after went on shore, and was received by the 
Governor, Mr. Couprrus, Major Brown and all the Officers of the 
Garrison. He was conducted to the Government House, whence 
after a short stay we went to the house inhabited by Major Brown. 
Some other houses the Admiral looked at, but they all appeared too 
hot and confined, and at last he resolved on going into Captain 
Newcomn’s house on North-West side of the town just outside the 
Tranquera bridge, Mr. Courrerus never once haying offered the 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 59 


Government House, though the only one proper for his residence. 
We dined this day with Mr. Covprrvs; there was a large company, 
and not a bad dinner, allowing for Dutch cooking’, of which I have 
not the most delicate idea. Madam Covrerus was dressed in the 
most unbecoming manner possible, a mixture between the Malay 
and Portuguese, her outward garment being made exactly like a 
shift, she looked as if she reversed the order of her dress altoge- 
ther. Her hair was drawn so tight to the crown of her head, and 
the skin of her forehead so stretched, that she could scarce wink 
her eyelids; she seemed however very affable and well bred for a 
person never out of Malacca. In the evening she played on the 
harp, a plain instrument without pedals and only capable of a na- 
tural key, made at Batavia; she was accompanied by some of her 
slaves on violins; and altogether made very good music for a 
Dutchman to sleep to; she ¢hewed betel incessantly, as did the 
other ladies in company, and every chair in the room was furnished 
with a cuspidor to spit in, for while the ladies chewed and played, 
the Dutchmen smoked their Jong pipes and drank Kicin beer, 
which is some of the best malt liquor I ever tasted. We were at- 
tended at dinner and during the evening by Malay slaves, male and 
femele, some of the latter rather pretty, considering the general 
cast of Malay features. Covupervs, I am told, has above 130 slaves, 
which must be a vast expense to him, and le never sells one, 
December 2nd—The declaration to dissolve the Dutch Goyern- 
ment, which is to be made in Council, was this day prepared. 
ord.—After a conference of considerable length between the 
Admiral and Major Browy, the latter was taken ill, and therefore 
,no decision took place respecting the declaration. The Uonvoy 
arrived this day trom Penang; Major Vicors and most of the 
Officers landed. 
4th—The Admiral, finding Major Brown unable to attend 
business this day, convened the Dutch Council and dissolved 
the Government as it stood since our possessing the piace, having 
entered the declaration as a minute in their proceedings. Captain 
Newcome was in the ridiculous predicament of sitting as a Member 
during the dissolution of the Government, though the mode of 
forming it was partly a measure of his own; however, I believe he 
concurred much more heartily in its dissolution than establishment, 


60 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


as he honestly confesses himself to have been overruled contrary 
to the suggestions of his own judgment. The troops this day 
landed from the different ships. The Admiral was somewhat embar- 
rassed to draw a line between Majors Vicors and Brown, but upon 
the former, though Senior Officer, agreeing that the Civil Govern- 
ment should be vested in Major Brown, as supposed to have most 
information and experience on that subject, reserving to himself 
the command of the Troops, that medium was accordingly adopted. 

Sth.—For some days past was extremely ill, but was this day 
able to visit the works of the Fort and Town, which I found in 
better order and more capable of defence than I could suppose 


from the facility with which it was gained by so small a force. 
Had the Dutch been true to their trust and assembled the garrisons 
of Rhio and Perak, as they were ordered from Batavia to do, they 
certainly might have occasioned us @ deal of trouble. 

Ith. Visited Bocca* China and was much surprised at the 
attempt to fortify such an extensive line as is here intended and 
partly executed, and which the whole garrison is not more than 
equal to defend, in case of an attack; and it seemed to me that this 
work might have been Iaid ont, to much more advantage and effect, 
in the Fort and round the Town. | 

[Lth.— The Spy, schooner, arrived this day from Manila, measured 
a base line for the survey of Malacca. 

15th.—These two days chiefly employed in surveying the Fort 
and environs. After restless enquiry concerning the strength and 
situation of the different islands to the Eastward, learned that 
there were four Natives of Amboina on board a small brig com- 
manded by a French Officer, in search of whom I sent my chief 
Malay Interpreter, who procured two of them for me. 

f4th.—The arrangement for the further expedition Eastward 
having been made, and given to the Admiral for his consideration 
and approval, lie referred it to Major Brown, who made several 
alterations in it, particularly relative to the Grenadier Companies, 
two of which he insisted on reserving, as part of his garrison of 
Malacca: certainly the best men should soonest be employed where 
service was aciually going forward, instead of being reserved for a 
remote chance of service mm garrison. 

16th.—After much enquiry and considerable expense, I had this 


* Bukit, the Malay for Hill. 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS, OL 


day the pleasure to obtain very satisfactory information felative to 
the situation, strength and disposition of the Natives of Amboina, 
from which I have great hopes the task of reducing it, if necessary, 
will not prove very arduous. 

The arrangement being somewhat out of the regular line of 
roster, has occasioned a good deal of discontent and representa- 
tions from the officers left behind, but has not caused any change 
in the orders. 

17th.—By an English ship arrived from China, we learn that 
there were no French ships at Batavia on the Ist of November, as 
three Portuguese ships left it on that date and arrived at Macao 
December 3rd. These Portuguese may account for the white flags 
that we have frequent reports of as French in that quarter. 

19th.—TVhe Suffolk, Centurion and Hobart arrived this morning 
from Pulo Penang. By them we learn the news of an action im the 
Mediterranean, in which we were decidedly victorious; that a 
successful descent has been made on the coast of I'rance; that the 
Bill for Relief of the Army in India was at last before Parhament : 
and several other pieces of intelligence. 

21st.—The Ariniston. Indiaman, was this day despatched on her 
voyage to China. 

25th.— Chiefly engaged in completing the survey of Malacca. 
The Prize Agents employed in taking accounts of all the public 
effects, Major Brown having resigned the Government of Malacca, 
and Major Vicors having preferred going on the expedition, Captain 
Parr, next in seniority, was put in orders for the Government of 
Malacea. Licutenant Herirnanp was also ordered for the expedi- 
tion. | 

30th —As it appeared to the Admiral that we were scarce in 
tonnage, the Armenia, Captain Sanps, of 300 tons, was this day 
taken up at four Pagodas a ton per month for six weeks certain. 

31st.—Several of the seamen being in a very sickly state were sent 
on shore under the charge of Doctor Harris’s Assistant here, as 
being unfit for immediate service, but as there was a great want of 
wholesome accommodation for them, I made, by the Admiral’s order, 
a plan of a temporary hospital for the sick of the Navy, the execu- 
tion of which I left to Lieutenant Farquyar. Notwithstanding that 
his town is surrounded on the land side with impenetrable jungles 


62 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


and swamps, from the small proportion of sick in Hospital, it may 
be reckoned healthy for Europeans, though, since our possession of 
it, the rains have been very constant. This is probably owing to 
the effect of putrid vegetation being washed away as soon as formed. 

Though sitnated in the most favourable way for uniting all the 
resources of a rich country with an easy communication by sea to 
foreign markets, Malacca now labours under every inconvenience 
that an island does, without its advantages, and though it has 
adjoming a soil capable of yielding the richest productions of every 
kind, and though under the dominion of an European power for 
about 250 years, it remains, even to the foot of the lines of the 
town, as wild and uncultivated as if there had never been a scttle- 
ment formed here; and except by the small river that passes between 
the fort and town, you cannot penetrate into the country m any 
direction, above a few miles; nor is even this extent general, being 
confined to the roads that run alone the sea shore about two miles 
each way, and one that goes inland. Myr, Couprrus has a country 
house about four miles on this latter road: and there were, some 
time ago, gambier gardens, about seven miles inland, to which this 
road led, but it is not at present cleared farther than Mr. 
Courrsrus’s house. There is no cultivation at present round Ma- 
lacca but the gardens of the Chinese, and a few of the Malays, 
who supply the town with great abundance of vegetables and 
fruits, the varieties of which are reckoned at upwards of 100, 
few of which are indebted, however, to cultivation, being mostly the 
spontaneous productions of Nature. The gardens immediately next 
the town are so choaked up with cocoanut trees that even from 
Bocca China you can hardly see a house; they grow indeed so 
thick as very much to obstruct the free circulation of the air, and 
almost, entirely to keep off the land wind, which at this season is 
the prevailing one, and very cool and pleasant. ‘This extraordina- 
ry want of cultivation, I am informed, is the consequence of the 
restrictive policy of the Dutch Government of Batavia, who make 
a point of discouraging it, in all their Settlements, the more ef- 
fectually to render them dependant on Java, where alone they 
promote cultivation and improvement, and from whence they sup- 
ply all the other Settlements, even with the common necessaries of 
life. Sugar might be cultivated here to great advantage, the cli- 


PXVEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS, 63 


mate being very favourable to its growth, but no more is grown 
than is used as a common vegetable, the manufacture of that arti- 
cle having been hitherto prohibited. Salt too might, with very 
little attention and care, be made in quantity, on the swamps quite 
close to the town, but Mr. CovurErts says they are not salt enough 
for the purpose; the truth of which I can scarce credit, as they are 
subject to be overflowed by the tides, and have no fresh water to 
communicate with them. There was, some years ago, a very good 
manufacture of gambier here, which exported nearly 40,000 pikuls 
annually; but about 9 years ago, in the war with the Malays, the 
gardens were cut down, and the manufacture destroyed. Since 
then there is but a very small quantity made here, and Rhio is 
now the chief place where it is manufactured. Gambier is a sub- 
stance of a waxy consistence, and a heht yellowish brown colour, 
formed by the decoction of the leaves of the shrub into which a 
small quantity of rice flour is thrown, to make it more firm and 
solid. Jt is of an acrid bitter taste, and is eaten with betel by all 
the Malays; it leaves an agreeable sweetness on the palate. J am 
told it only differs from a similar substance made use of on the 
coast of Coromandel in the same way, imported from Pegue, called 
Cotchundy, by the admixture of the rice flour, which renders it 
of a better consistence and more casily packed and transported, 
and less hable to run in hot weather. This article was the only 
manufacture in Malacca, that I can learn, and with canes, dammar, 
betelnuts, and gold dust from Mount Ophir, about 26 miles inland, 
constituted the only natural exports; and now that the gardens 
have been destroyed, and the manufacture transferred to Rhio, and 
that canes are grown quite out of demand, the remaining articles 
are all the Settlement furnishes at present for exportation, and it 
is dependent on foreign markets even for the common necessaries 
of life. The exclusive trade which the Dutch carried on, and the 
breach of which they punished with death, was in tin, pepper, 
opium, Japan copper, and spices; the two first articles they bought 
from the Malays at their own prices, having either established fac- 
tories for melting the tin and collecting the pepper, as at Rhio, 
Perak, Palembang, or forced them to sell wherever they could find 
them; the other three articles they sold to them. Their open 
trade consists in salt, piece goods of India, Macassar cloths, tor- 


64 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


toise shells, ivory wax and gold dust. About four years ago when 
the Commissioners from Holland found the trade of Malacca so 
much on the decline, they reduced the Civil aud Military Esta- 
blishments of it considerably ; the diminution of the trade, I under- 
stand, ina great degree is owing to the vicinity of Penang, where 
the Malays, finding a free sale for all their goods, naturally carry 
them whenever they can escape the vigilance of the Dutch; and 
no doubt of it the prosperity of Penang is considerably indebted to 
the monopoly of Malacca. How far it may be affected hereafter 
by this monopoly being put an end to, it is hard to say; certainly 
Malacca is better situated for trade, particularly that carried on 
by the Malays in their prows; and it is the key of the straits, 
since no ship can pass but in the sight of it, and I have little 
doubt but it will soon recover its former consequence, when the 
freedom of trade shall take effect, and the Dutch influence is 
known to be at an end. Itis probable that there will be found 
advantages and trade sufficient to support both this and Penang. 
This it is certainly necessary to keep, to prevent any other power 
establishing themselves in it, and it is likely the Americans would 
avail themselves of the circumstances of its being evacuated in a 
short time, which might be attended with very inconvenient effects 
to us hereafter: and as to Penang it possesses natural advantages 
enough to ensure its prosperity, unless thrown off and disclaimed as 
unworthy the protection of the Company ; and amongst its advan- 
tages, I cannot help thinking its harbour for ships, and resources 
for ship-building not the least, particularly as it is not at all im- 
probable but the chief business done in that lime may soon find 
its way from Batavia thither, which indeed is sincerely to be wish- 
ed, on the score of humanity, that baneful climate having so often 
proved fatal to those whom either choice or necessity led thither, 
for repairing their ships; and as there is a possibility of our soon 
becoming masters of that place, it might be worth attention to en- 
deavour to establish the artificers in the ship-building line, at 
Penang, which I have already remarked is well caleulated for a 
Naval Arsenal. We should then have resources on both sides of 
India, and ships meeting with accident on one side of the Penin- 
sula, need not go to the other for repair. The trade of.ships too is 
very much increased in these Straits, within a few years back, 
which is attended with the good effect of discouraging the propen- 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 65 


sity to piracy, so common among the Malays; and here, having men- 
tioned this propensity for piracy, it may not be improper to re- 
mark, that it would be a most meritorious work to put a stop to it, 
should we have an opportunity, by gaining possession of all the 
Dutch Settlements to the Eastward; which might in some time be 
effected by a couple of frigates stationed in the Straits of Malacca 
and Sunda or Bally, and four or five sloops of war or armed brigs 
of a small draft of water, and made for sailing into the creeks 
where the prows of the pirates generally rendezvous. The sloops 
to have ranges alloted to them, and then publishing, in all the 
islands and chief towns of the Malays, Badjoos, and, Buggesses, 
that the English are determined to destroy the towns where or 
under whose jurisdiction piracies are committed, and all prows 
armed beyond a certain scale. After a few examples should have 
been made, nations the most savage would soon cease practices so 
ruinous to their interest. This undertaking, which would add digni- 
ty and respect to the English flag, and promote the cause of huma- 
nity, and social intercourse with nations now unacquainted with 
such sentiments, might, I should hope, be accomplished at no very 
considerable expense, as a certain duty of tonnage might be well 
afforded, by all ships trading to the Eastward, for that security to 
their lives and properties, which they are now under the necessity 
of guarding, each separately, at a very great additional expense of 
men and guns, exclusive of the constant apprehensions under 
which they carry on all their connections with those islands ; be- 
sides which, as the intercourse of trade would by this means very 
much increase, an inconceivably greater field would open for the 
sale of British manufactures of all kinds; for the safety of trade 
once established, the prices paid for European articles by those 
nations would fall to that just rate, which would enable them to 
purchase infinitely greater quantities with more certain advantage 
to us than we now derive from extraordinary profits attended 
with great risks. 
Abundance and great variety of timber fit for ship-building is to 
be got both here and at Penang. Masts of the largest size are got 
very cheap from the opposite side at Syac,* and are sent annually 
to Batavia. It was for the purpose of carrying a cargo now ready 
here, that the Constantia, an old Indiaman, was sent here. A 


* Siak, 


66 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


74-gun ship’s mast may be bought for two hundred dollars. 

The population of Malacca does not exceed 14,000 or 15,000, 
which is calculated from the quantity of rice imported, and may be 
tolerably exact; they consist of Malays, Chinese, Chulears and 
Europeans; and as there is nothing bearing any resemblance to a 
Raja or Supreme Head among them from the interior part of the 
country, each caste has its own Chief or Captain as he is called, who 
are all subordinate to the Government. 

The disposition of the Malays about Malacca is quite inoffensive, 
nor has there been any act of treachery, that I could learn, com- 
mitted by them for a considerable time past. In their domestic 
habits they are free from the prejudices of the Hindoos, and are 
reckoned Mahomedans, though I fancy their chief tenet is abstaining 
from swine’s flesh. They are extremely indolent, and, if not tempted 
by the hope of gain, would never exert themselves. Though very 
muscular in their make, and better formed for strength and activity 
than any of the Natives of India, they are passionately addicted to 
gaming and cock-fighting, which are their chief amusements. Creese- 
fighting is the principal public exhibition I could observe, in which 
the combatants pride themselves, not in the boldness of attack, and 
manly agility, but in the wily approach of a tiger, where their 
greatest merit lies in getting unawares behind their antagonist, 
and surprising him by a stab in the back ; and this circumstance I 
look upon as strongly indicative of the general disposition of the 
Malays. 

The Chinese are equally addicted to gaming with the Malays, 
and have here and at Penang licensed houses where they play with 
dice, a kind of hazard that seems to have a good deal more variety 
than ours. They are also fond of theatrical exhibitions in which 
their merit is considerable; their chief performers are carpenters 
and other artificers, and 1 doubt not if people of the same rank in 
life, in a distant country town in England, were to attempt getting 
up a play, they could hardly outdo the exhibition of the sort we 
saw at Penang, on a stage erected for the purpose in the streets. 
The spectators sat on chairs and benches in the open air and were 
refreshed with tea and sweetmeats ; their music is certainly very 
disagreeable, being composed of gongs and very harsh hautboys. 
They are very industrious, almost all of them keep little shops 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 67 


and sell groceries of all sorts. They all hitherto sold arrack, and 
the consequent drunkenness of the place was abominable. J am 
happy to observe now, however, that by the new regulations with 
respect to the duties, this article is put under limitation, and taxed 
as it should be. The Chinese, when they arrive at a certain age, 
always prepare their coffins, as a memorandum of the end they 
must sooner or later necessarily arrive at, and a stimulus to the 
observance of morality during life ; and certainly they are in gene- 
ral a very orderly well-behaved people. At every man’s door you 
accordingly see four or five immensely thick planks of which their 
coffins are to be made. Their burying ground they always choose 
on a hill, and that called Bocca China derives its name from being 
chiefly devoted to that purpose. Their tombs are of a particular 
construction, being surrounded by a considerable space open on 
one side and semicircular on the other; some of them formed ata 
great expense. They always enclose with the dead body, a cer- 
tain quantity of provision, and sometimes money. [rom their 
industry and ingenuity they are very useful to new settlements, 
and deserve to be delivered from those oppressive impositions 
which the Admiral has very wisely put an end to. They are great 
breeders of hogs, and are generally the persons who slaughter 
them; but why the privilege of doing so should become a subject 
of taxation as in the Dutch Government, and still continued, more 
than beef, I don’t understand : unless it be that they have a parti- 
cular method of increasing the weight of the pork by introducing 
water into all its pores, similar to the cheat butchers at home 
sometimes practise of blowing up meat to make it look well, but 
still more effectual. They kill beef too, which is very coarse and 
bad, being all buffalo. There are bullocks and cows here, but 
very scarce and poor, and the milk and butter, both here and at 
Penang, are very bad; the cause is the same in both places; the soil 
not being sufficiently cleared, the natural grass in the swamps and 
jungles is too coarse for bullocks, but is the best for buffaloes, 
which here grow to a great size and strength, and when taken are 
very fierce. For the same reason sheep cannot thrive, there is 
therefore no mutton but from Bengal. 

Almost all the mountains in the Peninsula of Malacca as well as 
those on Sumatra are impregnated more or less with gold, and 


68 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


many of them go by the name of Mount Ophir; that inland from 
this place is about twenty-six miles, the communication to it being 
from the river that disembogues near Point Sisa. The Malays who 
eo there are under no restraint, nor pay any duty, but enclose with 
stakes a certain extent of ground where they think convenient, 
work until they procure the quantity they want, and then return 
to dispose of it. J am informed the richest gold mine in the 
world is the black mountain in Cochin-China, the working of 
which having been interrupted by. civil wars for four years together 
sometime back, the price of gold dust in China rose twenty-five 
per cent. higher than its general rate, and upon its being again 
opened, gold dust, throughout that immense empire, fell to its 
former standard. 


Concerning the works of the fort of the town of Malacca, according 
to the plan they are built upon, they are in tolerably good repair, and 
capable of considerable defence ; though should it remain eventually 
in our possession, which is not unlikely, and a strong garrison be 
established in it, I think it would be absolutely necessary to mo- 
dernize the whole river face of the fort, and enlarge the two 
adjoining bastions; to open the streets of the town to the enfila- 
ding fire of the fort; to deepen the ditch and complete the lines 
round the town ; to erect an outwork before the salient angle next 
the sea, to open a communication with Bocca China, and to erect 
two small regular redoubts thereon connected by a strong stockade 
well scarped on the outside, and lastly to clear the ground at least 
the distance of four hundred yards, for an esplanade. A magazine 
for powder is indispensably necessary, no secure building for that 
purpose having hitherto existed. The severity which the Dutch 
have constantly exercised in this Government has impressed itself 
so forcibly on the minds of the inhabitants of all denominations, 
that they can hardly conceive the English to be now their rulers, 
from the mildness of our administration and the politeness we show 
to the Dutch, which is attended with the ill effect of their influence 
being still so great as to keep back every kind of information and 
assistance that we might naturally expect ; it therefore becomes the 
more necessary to adopt decisive measures, and the Admiral has 
accordingly resolved to send away the late Governor and Dutch 
soldiers who have hitherto been kept in contradiction to the orders 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 69 


from Madras. However, as there has been a sort of interregnum 
with regard to the Administration of Justice, it was judged neces- 
sary to continue in office the Members of the former Court of Judi- 
cature, which some of them seemed not over willing to comply 
with, until they were given to understand, that the alternative 
was being sent to Madras ; accordingly a commission of justice was 
made out and issued. The Fiscal is the Acting Member upon all 
occasions of small import, and in the Dutch Government, his fees 
always bore proportion to the rigour of the punishment. This 
stimulus to cruelty neither the general disposition of the Dutch, 
nor the particular temper of Mr. Ruvpf required, and it was but 
a short time before our arrival that a young woman with child was 
whipped so unmercifully that she died in a short time. They 
sometimes proportion the punishment to the time of smoking their 
pipes; and it is not uncommon to say give him one or two pipes, 
according to the magnitude of the offence; meaning that the cri- 
minal is to be flogged during the time that the phlegmatic Fiscal 
smokes one or two pipes of tobacco. 

The investigation of the public accounts and revenue has been a 
source of great trouble, and until the determination to send away 
Mr. Covrrrvs and the Dutch soldiers was understood, every pos- 
sible difficulty was thrownin the way. It now appears that sev- 
eral things were omitted in the statement of public property first 
sent. The account of the salaries and emoluments of the Dutch 
servants seem to be loaded with a great many more charges than 
is natural to conceive would be allowed; but there seems to have 
been a great deal of peculation in practice, particularly in one 
article, the share of 25 per cent. on the revenue, that was allowed 
to the Civil Servants; the consequence of which was, that the 
Government tempted the Chinese farmers of the revenue, to bid 
a vast deal more than they were really worth, from the first fruits 
of which their share were regularly paid; but the balance was 
more than could be collected; and they were therefore obliged to 
write to Batavia for a remission of it altogether, which I am im- 
formed was never refused. After the resignation of Major Browy, 
the Admiral found himself freed from the promise he had made 
to continue the monopoly, and therefore the public sale of the 
revenue, some days ago advertised for this day, is on the principle 


70 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


of a trade open to all, upon certain fixed duties, which perhaps 
may be more profitable in the end, than the monopoly. 

January 3rd, 1796.—The order issued some days ago for the 
embarkation of the troops, was necessarily changed on the Admiral 
resolving to leave behind the Centurion, for the defence of the 
Straits and Settlement of Malacca, as we have lately heard frequent 
reports of the French and Dutch Cruizers being out. From this and 
the great imcrease of stores and baggage, all the ships are very 
much crowded. 

4th —My. Covrrnrus having had orders to prepare himself to go 
to Madras on this day on board the Swallow, as he had a large 
family, and vessel of his own, which has hitherto passed for a brig 
belonging to the King of Cochin, commanded by a French officer, 
he requested permission to proceed in her; and having reported 
himself ready and obtained his passport from the Admiral, he em- 
barked accordingly. 


Fron Malacca Eastward. 


dth.—The troops and stores being all on board the respective 
ships, instructions were drawn out for the guidance of Captain 
Parr, on which he was directed to build a temporary hospital. 
The sick of the Dutch soldiers were placed under the care of Dr. 
Harris’s Assistant, and the Pioneers left at Malacca and public 
artificers put under charge of Lieutenant Farquuar, also the work 
on Bocca China ordered to be discontinued. 

6th.—Embarked this morning with the Admiral, being now pro- 
vided with such interpreters and guides as I could procure. 

Sailed from the Road of Malacca about 12 o’clock, having closed 
the despatches for Madras per Swallow, passed the Water Islands 
with a light air, but the tide towards night making against us we 
brought to near Mount Formosa. 

7th.—Weighed anchor this morning, the wind rather against us, 
but with the aid of the tide we passed Pulo Pisang and anchored 
near Pulo Cocup in sight of the Carrimons. The 8th, taking advan- 
tage of the tides, for the winds were by no means favorable, we 
got on to near One-tree Island, when we anchored. This is a very 
dangerous shoal and reef, extending full three miles in nearly an 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 71 


East and West direction, and, at high water, only a few of the rocks 
above water, and a single tree from which it derives its name. The 
9th, though the winds were still contrary, we worked on with the 
tides, and passed Red Island on the right and Barn Island and the 
Rabbit and Coney on the left, and several other nameless islands 
besides. The working of the different ships through these narrow 
channels was extremely beautiful, the islands being clothed with 
the richest luxuriance. The Surprize got a turtle from a prow that 
came off one of the islands. We passed the island St. John’s and 
anchored for the night in sight of Point Romania. The Suffolk's 
launch, the Mary and Armonia were very far astern on the 10th, 
though the wind, was tolerably fair; the Transports were so far 
astern that it was one o'clock before we could get under weigh. We 
then made sail, but were soon after again obliged to come to near 
Point Romania. These straits are by no means well laid down, as 
it is impossible to know the different islands and headlands from 
any chart of them yet published. It certainly would be a very 
desirable circumstance, to have a complete regular survey of them, 
as from the number of different islands, channels might be disco- 
vered, that would favour the passage of ships in either direction, 
and with any winds, as I am informed there is a deep water and 
good anchorage through almost all of them, but from want of 
knowledge of them, ships being afraid of exploring new passages, 
loose a vast deal of time. The tides here are very irregular, but in 
general, in North-East monsoons, are observed to flow eighteen 
hours and ebb six. The flood on the Eastern side of the strait, Iam 
told, is fromthe Hastward, and I am told these circumstances are 
reversed in the opposite monsoon. It is certainly a subject well 
worth observation to examine into the effects of the tides in these 
straits, which must be liable to great variations in different 
parts, from the multiplicity of islands and channels, and should 


become an essential part of the duty of any person appointed to 
survey them. 


Straits of Singapore. 


11ih.—A sail in sight to the Southward, which proved, as was 
supposed, to’ be the Transfer, Captain Extmory. We stood on with 
the tide, but not being able to weather Pedra Branca, were obliged 


72 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 


to return and again anchor under Point Romania; the Transfer also 
joined us. 

12th.—Captain Newcome came on board this morning, and brought 
us a fine turtle; he also gave us the intelligence, from the Mate of 
the Transfer, who was on shore at Rhio, that on the 7th instant a 
prow arrived there from Banca, the Noqueda* or Malay Commander 
of which reported to the Sultan of Rhio, that there were on the 
Straits of Banca three French and two Dutch Ships-of-war (copal 
praou,} in the Malay tongue) ; and that the Sultan advised him not 
to proceed by that passage on that account. The Mate, who came 
on board, thinks the report well founded, as the forfeiture of his 
life, he says, would be the consequence to the Noqueda, of false 
information. The Admiral on this resolved to return as far as the 
little Carimon Island, and send into Malacca for the Centurion ; 
and, after giving the requisite warning to the Settlement of Malacca, 
to proceed by the Straits of Durion and Banca, in order, if possible, 
to intercept this force, which may be an armament destined either 
for the recovery of Malacca, or to distress our trade in these Straits ; 
and there is some reason to suspect Mr. Coupprus may have given 
intelligence to Batavia of the exact situation of the garrison of 
Malacea, and likewise of the probable time of our departure. For 
upon further enquiry, it appears that he had some idea of a force 
on these Straits, as he warned Captain Sanps of the Armenia, with 
whom he had some connection in trade, immediately on his arrival 
at Malacca, and before he was taken up as a Transport, to avoid the 
Straits of Banca, knowing or suspecting danger there. Captain 
Newcome dined with us to-day, and mentions that the soldiers on 
board the Orpheus are very discontented, on account of the dif- 
ference of provisions with which they are served from that of the 
sailors. On long voyages like the present, when the services of 
men are to be immediately called for, and every exertion expected 
from them, there should certainly be more attention and hberality 
shewn to their provisions, on which their health so materially 
depends. They are denied the little gratifications of flour, peas, 
sugar, &c., and only served: biscuits and salt beef, 1lb of each per 
day to each man; the consequent sickness, or at least weakness, of 
the men, after a voyage of six weeks, must surely bea much greater 


* Nakhoda. 
+ Kapal prang. 


EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 73 


loss to the public service than those little allowances; which would 
not only gratify their pride as well as palate, but keep up that 
efficient vigour necessary on their arrival at their destined scene of 
action, for supposing only five in a hundred to suffer by the saving, 
exclusive of the idea of humanity, that of economy will make it 
evidently appear that it is cheaper to employ one hundred stout 
healthy well fed men, than one hundred and five supported on 
this curtailed allowance, five of whom are sure to become unser- 
viceable thereby. 


Off Carimon Island. 


13th.—As if the winds were determined to oppose us, the mo- 
ment yesterday we resolved on returning, it chopped about, and 
was still against us, so that our progress back promises to be as 
tedious as when coming. 

14th. Having come to an anchor off the little Carimon island, 
the Admiral despatched the Hobart and prow to Malacca, with or- 
ders for the Centurion and Swift to join us. J wrote to Captain 
Parr an account of the information which caused our return, and 
the Admiral’s intention to proceed by the Straits of Banca, to clear 
it of any enemy that may be there. 


15th.—A large ship appeared coming from the Eastward, which 
proved to be the Phoenix, Captain Hay, from Manila, the same that 
was sometime ago guilty of piracy not far from hence, in having 
plundered and burned a Dutch snow and plundered a vessel under 
Arab colours. The Admiral sent for him, but as he shewed rather 
an inclination to prosecute his voyage, the Resistance was sent in 
chase. 

16th.—The Seapoys and pioneers were landed at a very good 
watering place on the great Carimon Island, to refresh themselves, 
while the Transports were well washed and cleaned, which, from 
being so crowded, could not be done while they were on board, 
and was therefore necessary to their health and comfort. We also 
changed our place and anchored near to the watering place. 

17th.—This day joined us from Malacca, the Centurion, Hobart and 
Swift. They inform us of the loss of the Shah-Munshy of Bombay, 
from China, on the rocks of Pedra Branca on the 8th instant ; the 


74 EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS, 


crew were all saved in their boats, but the ship went to pieces 
immediately, and nothing but their lives saved; the boats must 
have passed us in the night of the ninth. The loss of this fine 
ship is the consequence of the want of proper survey of these 
straits, with proper remarks on the tides and currents. From the 
Phenix we this day learn by our boat which returned from her, 
that there are two Spanish Frigates at Manila, both sickly, bound 
shortly to Spain by way of Cape Horn. That the forces of Manila 
are considerably increased, and great pains taken in their discipline. 
That the fort is put into a very respectable state of defence, the works 
being new modelled and repaired. The present Governor is reckoned 
an active clever man, who encourages cultivation and trade. Some 
specimens of a white rope made of grass, and some of the material 
itself prepared for twisting, were brought us, which seem to be very 
strong, but I understand decays in fresh water. They make a very 
good sort of canvass of it. Jam inclined to think that if the long 
grass, which grows on the beds of all the great rivers on the coast, 
was properly prepared, it is the same, or at least would be equiva- 
lent to it, in strength and durability, as it possesses a remarkably 
strong fibre, very fine and silky. We also got a small supply of 
chocolate and biscuits from the Phenix. This day a duel was 
fought between Ensign Deacon, of the 17th Battalion, and Captain 
Turneutty of the Mary, Transport. 


[ The Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society is indebted to 
Mr. W. HE. Maxwexu for the above interesting paper. Mr. Max- 
WELL found it when looking through some papers at the India 
Office Library, and copied that part of Captain Lennon’s Journal 
which describes the passage of the Expedition through the Straits 
of Malacca,—Eb. | 


A SKETCH OF THE CAREER 


OF THE LATE 


Mees Iki CHARDSON LOGAN, 
OF PENANG AND SINGAPORE. 


BY 


Peo NS ULE THOMSON. 


In perusing the first number of your publication, I observe the 
high terms in which my friend the late James Rrcuarpson LoGaN is 
noticed by your Vice-President, the Ven’ble Archdeacon Hoss, M.a. 
This induces me to forward to you a few reminiscences of him, for, 
coming from one who knew him from boyhood, and who had the 
privilege of being his intimate friend for many years when residing 
in the Straits, what I have to relate, I venture to anticipate, will 
be of some interest to your readers. 

He was the son of Mr. Tuomas Locan, of Berrywell, Ber- 
wickshire, Scotland, who had married his cousin, also a Locay, 
and to his mother my friend bore a strong resemblance. His 
superior intellectual faculties were also inherited from this source, 
hers being ofa high order. His parents belonged to a family which, 
in their country, were and are eminent as agriculturists, but at the 
time | first knew him, Mr. Tuomas Locan had retired from business. 

I met the subject of this notice as a boy when he was attending 
the Academy of Dunse, conducted by the late Mr. Toomas Mauts. 
He was there what was called an extra scholar, sitting with others 
at a table in the centre of the school apart from the ordinary classi- 
cal benches. At the table at which J. R. Logan sat, he and others 
were brought forward in the several branches of education by special 
teaching. From this Academy many men of note have emanated ; 
amongst those that I can call to memory are the late Professor. 
CunnincHam of Edinburgh, Captain Barro Smiru of Bengal, and 
Dr. Ropert Hoce of London, ° 


76 A SKETCH OF THE CAREER OF THE LATE J. R. LOGAN. 


J. KR. Logan was some three years older than myself; hence, 
during the years 1830, 31 and 32, when we sat in the same 
school-room as boys, we arrived at no close intimacy. But the 
course of events brought us together in another part of the globe, 
by different routes and dissimilar adventure, it is true, yet the year 
1889 found us as guests of the late amiable and kind-hearted pro- 
prietor of Glugor, Penang, and Longformacus, Berwickshire—the 
late Davin WarpitAw Brown, Esquire. Here a friendship and 
mutual confidence was established, that flagged not till death. 

After leaving Dunse Academy, J. R. Locan proceeded to Edin- 
burgh as pupil to a cousin of the same name, by profession an 
Advocate or Barrister. After fulfilling his time, he proceeded to 
Bengal, at the invitation of another cousin named Danret Logan, 
of whom he used always to speak with the highest regard, 
where he was engaged in indigo-planting for a short time, after 
which he accepted the invitation of his friend and schoolfellow, the 
late Mr. Forsrs Scorr Brown, to join him at Penang. Here he 
soon found an opening in his profession by the departure for Hurope, 


Ais Re Mr. Bretuercner, Solicitor, who practised in the Penang 


ce an obstacle in the way of his entering the Bar suddenly and 

| unexpectedly presented itself in the shape of a most extraordinary 
freak on the part of the political rulers, who were at that time | 
officials of the Hon’ble East India Company. The then Governor, 
Mr. Bonnam, and his coadjutors, taking advantage of the absence 
of the Judge, Sir Winutam Norrts, abolished the Bar with three 
objects in view. First, retrenchment; secondly, an addition to their — 
power; and thirdly, a saving of trouble to themselves. On these: 
three grounds the young Advocate was refused admission. But so 
well was he supported, and so highly were his abilities appreciated 
by the inhabitants of the Settlement—EHuropean and Native—that 
the authorities had to give way, and thenceforward he became a 
Member of the Straits Bar. 

In our frequent intercourse at Penang, I early observed his habits 
of close application and enquiry, the first instance of which was 
his sitting down beside a Kling shop at Sungei Kluang and 
obtaining from the owner, not only a list of all the various native 
products sold, but an account of their uses, places of growth. 


A SKETCH OF THE CAREER OF THE LATE J. R. LOGAN. 77 


prices, &c. In preparing himself also for the practice of English 
law (he having been trained in Scotland), I did not fail to notice 
with astonishment the intense continued application he gave to the 
contents of huge tomes, which, to me, were as “dry as dust” and as 
indigestible as sand. 

During my residence at Penang, which continued for over three 
years—in 1838 to 1841—he was a frequent visitor to my solitary 
bungalow situated in the interior. His company was never more 
charming than on such occasions. Making but few friends in 
society, and being of a particularly retiring disposition, he seemed 
to reserve an overfull share of his attractions for those that could 
heartily sympathise with him in old fellowship. I remember par- 
ticularly one occasion when IJ asked him to join me in an expe- 
dition to the interior of Sabrang Prye. Exploring the sources of 
the Junjong Idup, probably now covered with cultivation, but, at 
that time, under primitive forests, waste and unoccupied, except by 
the tiger or the jakun, we were detained for three days by a con- 
stant downpour and flooded rivers, having taken refuge ina deserted 
pondoh. Here his versatile talent came to our aid in wiling away 
the long, dark, dreary hours, whose melancholy and tedious», 
was enhanced by the wail of the wnku. IT never heard Shak-cures 
read with greater effect, vigour, or thorough appreciation. ~ Tt) 

Even in those his very young years, I found him a safe councillo. 
and adviser in matters important to myself, where a false step 
might have been irretrievable. In my heart I was thankful to him 
for this. We met again at Singapore in 1845-4, where his elder 
brother ABRAHAM had joined me in my own house as chum. A fal- 
ling off in practice at Penang made a change advisable for the 
younger Logan also, and with us he took up his residence. 

For several years, the busy practice of his profession seemed to 
engage his whole attention, but early in 1847 I had an indication 
of coming events; not that there had not been abundant indications 
before this, for while he conducted the Gazette at Penang he drew 
out originality and latent talent from many of the residents—Hu- 
ropean and Asiatic—which that paper had never shown before, and 
he himself illuminated it with many powerful leaders. 


The occasion of this direct indication occurred when he had pre- 
ceded me to Malacca on law business. I had followed in the gun- 


78 A SKETCH OF THE CAREER OF THE LATE J. R. LOGAN. 


boat on survey duty. Here it was difficult to find quarters, so he 
carried me to Kampong Illier, where he had hired a bungalow. In 
the evening he invited me to accompany him to St. John’s mount, 
where, he said, we should enjoy a most glorious sunset. While sit- 
ting on the old Dutch ramparts his first hint of a scientific journal 
was made to me, by his asking my co-operation—not that he seri- 
ously intended this, but as an indirect way of letting me know of 
a somewhat (as it would appear to me) ambitious project. At the 
time, I personally thought little more of it, but of his seriousness (if 
I had any doubts on the subject) he gave ample proof in his devotion 
of every spare moment to an examination of the geology of Malacca 
and its neighbourhood, exposing himself in this pursuit the live 
long day to the full rays of the tropical sun. Few men were gifted 
with such intense energy. Alas! the spirit was strong, but a deli- 
cate constitution denied to him the full exercise of his abilities. 

The establishment of the “Journal of the Indian Archipelago and 
Eastern Asia” duly took place in 1847, as mentioned by Archdeacon 
Host, who remarks that it was a bold enterprise for a single indi- 
vidual to undertake. I may also add that, continued as it was for 
so many years, 1t was also a most public spirited one, for such a 
work was necessarily mainly supported at the private expense of 
the proprietor. And as the Archdeacon justly states, the conti- 
nuance of the Journal evidenced a time of great scientific power and 
literary activity in the Straits. To LocGan is the credit due not 
only of evoking this power, but of having personally contributed so 
largely by his papers to its scientific objects. 

If my remembrance serves me aright, Logan, while influencing 
all that were willing to aid, himself engaged first in geological 
enqwury; next in geographical exploration; and then in philolo- 
gical studies: and, to my mind, it is on the latter that his reputation 
will mainly rest. 

During these few recent years, I have given some of my attention 
to one of the branches coming under the scope of his studies, and in 
reading the disquisitions of Hopcson on Asia, Buack on Africa, 
ANDREWS on Polynesia, with others, I find his elucidation of many 
remote and subtle points in the lnguistic peculiarities of nations 
most respectfully quoted or referred to. Indeed, he is generally 
known as Dr. Locgan—a title too often detained from those who 


A SKETCH OF THE CAREER OF THE LATE J. Rh. LOGAN. Ti, 


deserve it best. On this subject, it is now many years ago that I 
had the pleasure of the company of Sir Winttam Marriy, Chief 
Justice of New Zealand, when I was surprised to learn of the fami- 
liar knowledge which that learned lawyer had of the minute 
Analysis by Locan of the Polynesian languages. 

Logan, in first applying himself to the geology of the Malayan 
Peninsula, displayed great fortitude and contempt of danger, pro- 
ceeding as he did in his excursions in a small sampan into coves and 
creeks notoriously infested with pirates. But even more so did he 
display these admirable qualities when penetrating the wilds of 
Johor, Pahang and Kedah. About this period he had removed 
to Sungei Kallang, near Singapore, while I, bound by my official 
duty, remained in town. 

I remember, after he lad been on one of those expeditions for 
several weeks, I was suddenly aroused late in the evening by what 
appeared to be bis spectre. The next moment I saw hin tottering, 
when I rushed forward and grasped my friend, leading him to a 
chair. 

He had just returned from exploring the Indau, Johor, and Muar, 
crossing the jungles of the interior, and after. many adventures 
amongst the wild tribes and escapes from flooded rivers, alligators, 
&e., he found means to return to Singapore. Weak, weary and sick, 
he made his way to my house, as the nearest one, likely to administer 
to his immediate wants. In this, I need not say there was no laxity. 

In the latter years of our intercourse, I observed him to be prin- 
cipally devoted to philology. On this subject, his range of enquiry 
was as wide as it was persevering. | finally left the Far Hast in 1855, 
before he had entered into the midst of his labours in this direction ; 
yet I had had fair opportunity of seeing his close application to the 
science of language. All languages were equally attacked by him— 
HKuropean, Asian, African, American, and Polynesian—in their glos- 
sarial, phonetic and idiomatic phases, and particularly the latter. 
The extent of the learning evidenced by his papers is surprising, 
even now after the lapse of a quarter of a century, if we consider 
that they were published before the present facilities were offered 
or at hand to the student, which are now so abundantly pro- 
vided by the publication of the vocabularies and grammars of Hope- 
son, Korte, Biack, CAMPBELL, and a host of others. . 


SO IN TPE IUMCIEE OPH WUEGO) (CAE, (VN YUEUR) OVNI, di, IR, OCGA. 


IT may mention one incident which occurred at this period as exem- 
plifying his devotion to his favourite pursuit. In the year 1849-80, 
I was surveying the Johor River, when J asked him to accompany 
me for change of air. J had at my service a small gunboat not 
over well provided with kadjangs. Anchoring in the evening, I 
turned in after the fatigues of the day and fell asleep, but was awoke 
at midnight by a sudden turmoil. This proved to be a Sumatra, 
bringing with it the usual squalls and rain. On looking for my 
friend, I found him perched on the top of the powder cannister to save 
himself from the wet, close by a lamp at which he was, and had 
been all night, closely analysing the construction of the Dutch 
language. Such enthusiasm surely deserved unalloyed success and 
the applause of mankind. But the inscrutable ways of Providence 
brought not about the reward that his friends would have entirely 
desired, or which would have been entirely gratifying, to them. 
Sic transit gloria mundi! LOGAN is variously and at different times 
mentioned along with Marspxrn, Leypey, Rarris, and CRawrurp. 
For my part, I would class him alone with Levpey. But in doing 
so, even here there is considerable qualification. Both were bor- 
derers, both men of intense energy and great powers of application. 
With all this LuypEen was a poet, a poet above mediocrity. [Lam not 
aware that Logan ever wrote a verse. It is in the science of 
language that Leyprn and Locan are akin in genius, but Leyprn’s 
sphere was translation, LoGaAn’s analysis and comparison. LEYDEN 
was an antiquarian, LoGAN an explorer of things as they are, a far 
more difficult and deeper subject than the former, requiring great 
and comprehensive knowledge, a highly matured judgment, and 
close acuteness of critical powers. 

Fate was adverse to both; neither brought their labours to full 
consumation. Under happier circumstances, both would have illu- 
minated the world with best stores of yet dormant mysteries, where- 
in the complex skein of human races on this earth would have 
been disentangled and brought within our ken. While I mention 
LeypEN and Locay as being men of much the same genius and 
power, it would be neglectful not to denote their differences. LEYDEN 
was born of the humbler classes, Logan of the middle. This is 
only interesting in so far as it points a moral and illustrates life’s 
antithesis. In India, Jonny Leypern, the shepherd’s son, was the pri- 


’ 


A SKETCH OF THE CAREER OF THE LATE J. R. LOGAN, S1 


vileged companion and favoured protegé of the most illustrious men 
in power, by whose interest and support he had unstinted facilities 
given him in his special and peculiar pursuits. Loca, the son of 
a gentlman, had none of this. What he attained was due solely to his 
own labour and indomitable perserverance; these being exercised 
at the same time under the distracting influences of a laborious 
profession by which he honourably maintained himself. 

Under these circumstances, probably LnypEn would have accom- 
plished more; indeed he must have done so, but an early death 
overtook him, as we all know, caused by exposure to the malaria of 
Batavia. 

What Lryprny accomplished, therefore, was small as compared 
with Logan. In the science of races and languages, LOGAN’s grasp 
was almost universal, enabling him to collate the lexicons, vocabu- 
laries and grammars of nations and tribes in the most distant parts 
of the globe, and elucidate their systems and constructions. Of this 
vast enquiry, LeyDEN may be said to have had time only to 
approach the portal. 

But, as I have suggested before, Locan’s work was also incom- 
plete. Ten years of learned leisure in his native country would 
have enabled him to work wonders. But this was not vouchsafed 
to him. Borne down by weak health, far from his native land, he 
was taken from us at the age when man’s intellect is in its full 
vigour. And we live to lament unfulfilled hopes, disappointed 
aspirations, and useful labour ceased, to be no more. 


INVERCARGILL, New ZEALAND, 
20th May, 1881. 


eT 40] nih eal 
2 > 


“ 7 


he 


COSCTORS 


x 


at 


MEMORANDUM 


ON 


THE VARIOUS TRIBES INHABITING 
PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY 


BY THE LATE 


eR SE OIGAN. 


[ On the 80th November, 1880, the late Mr. Davin Arrren 
wrote to the Government stating that the late Mr. James Ricu- 
Arpson Logan had written, for the Government, a paper on the 
Wild Tribes of Penang and Province Wellesley, which Mr. Arrxen 
believed would be found in the records of the Lieutenaut-Goyern- 
or’s Office, Penang. 

A search was made, and the paper was found. IJt has never 
befere been published, and, coming from the pen of such an autho- 
rity as Mr. J. R. Loean, will be read with great interest.—Hp. | 


THE native races of the Malay Peninsula are the Simang, the 
Binua, the Malay, and the Siamese. 


Simang. 


The Simang are scattered in small disconnected herds through- 
out the forests of the broadest part of the Peninsula, comprising 
the Malay States of Kedah, Pérak and Tringganu. They are the 
sole aborigines of Kedah, including Province Wellesley, in the 
vicinity of which some families continued to wander until the 
increasing denseness of the Malay, Samsam, and Chinese popula- 


S4 TRIBES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 


tion, and the felling of the forests, drove them further inland. At 
present the nearest groups are those on the river Krian, above the 
British boundary. ' 

The Simang are a variety of the Papuan branch of the oldest 
race of India, Ultra-India, and the Indo-Pacific Islands, the other 
branch being the Draviro- Australian. 

The Papuans are distinguished from the lower Dravirian tribes 
and castes, and from the Australians, more by the spiral growth of 
the hair than by any other constant physica! characters. From the 


second great race of this ethnographical province—the Himalaic 
both branches are well differentiated by the non-Mongolic shape 
of the head and by the comparative slenderness of the trunk and 
limbs, and darkness of the skin. The most striking and general 
peculiarity of the head is the pyramidal form of the nose, caused 
by the root sinking deeply in below, or forming an acute angle with 
the base of the prominent brow ridge. 

In the Sitmang, the head is small, the forehead low, rounded, 
narrow and projecting over the root of the nose; the corona ridged 
or obtusely wedge-shaped; the occiput rounded and somewhat 
swelling ; the iower part of the face oval or ovoid ; the cheek bones 
broad, but not remarkably prominent, except with reference to the 
narrow. forehead; the upper jaw not prognathous; the nose short 
and somewhat sharp at the point and often turned up, also spread- 
ing; the mouth large, but lips not thick; the projecting brow 
nearly on the same vertical line with the nose, mouth and chin ; 
hair spiral and tufted; the beard of much stronger growth than 
with the Himalaic race; the eyes fine, middle-sized and straight ; 
the iris large, black and piercine; the conjunctive membrane 
yellow ; the person slender; the belly_protuberant; the skin fine 
and soft, varying in colour from yellowish brown and dark-brown 
to black ; average height about four feet eight inches. 

The Papuan race exhibits great variety throughout its range 
from the Andamans to the Viti-Archipelago, New Caledonia and Tas- 
mania. Some tribes are more Australoid than others ; some are 
more Mongolic, especially where there has been intermixture with 
the Himalaic race; and some approach the more debased and prog- 
nathous varicties of the African Negro, but, as a whole, the race is 
much more akin to the Dravirian (where the latter has not been 


TRIBES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 85 


improved by Iranian crossing), and to the East African, than to the 
Himalaic. While the Australian branch, protected from the 
Malayo Polynesian by the character of the Southern Continent, 
preserves a distinct form of language, which connects it with Dravi- 
rian. No example has yet been brought to light of a Papuan tongue 
possessing distinct pronouns and a distinet structure from the 
Malayo-Polynesian or Uimalayan. Some of the vocabularies 
contain many upper Asiatic words not found in Malayo- Polynesian 
dialects. The Simang dialects, while containing a large number of 
Malayo-Polynesian vocables, are more Himalaic than the Malayo- 
Polynesian glossaries. The pronouns have the peculiar forms that 
were current in the dialects of that branch of the Himalaic people 
which predominated in the Gangetic basin and its confines before 
the Arians advanced into it, and which spread its language and 
civilization eastward till they prevailed from Guzerat to Tonquin. 
These pronouns and many other common vocables are still used by 
the Kol or Southal tribes on the Ganges, the Kyi or Kasia in the 
Brahmaputra basin, the Palaong and the Mon or Peguans on the 
Trawadi, the Kambojans on the Mekong, and the Anamese on the 
Tonquin. The Simang and some of the Binua tribes appear to 
have obtained them at the time when the Mon-Kambojan nation 
was established on the Irawadi, the Menam and the Mekong, 
before the Burmans rose into power, and long before the Shans or 
Siamese advanced westward into Assam and southward down the 
Menam, separating the Mons from the Kambojans. That a Mon 
Colony continued to flourish on the Muda down to a period long 
subsequent to the intrusion of the Arians into India, is evidenced 
by the rock inscriptions in characters similar to the ancient Mon, 
which are found in Province Wellesley and on Bukit Mariam. 

The Simane are about the least civilised of the tribes of the 
Indian Archipelago. They wander in the forest, preying on wild 
animals, which they kill with spears, arrows and darts from the blow 
pipes ; their only clothing, a piece of bark round the middle ; and 
their temporary lairs only protected from the weather by a few 
branches or leaves hang over two or three sticks. 


Bind. 


These tribes, Himalaic in race, are scattered over the Southern 


S6 TRIBES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 


half of the. Peninsula, from Johor to Pérak, none being found in 
Kedah. 

The variations in the physical characters are considerable, but 
these are more closely allied to the Malayan than to the finer 
Indonesian. In a common form of the head, it is somewhat prog- 
nathous, the zycomata have much lateral development, the fore- 
head is very narrow, and the eye also is more oblique than in the 
Malay. In some respects this type resembles that of the Kol and 
some of the cognate Gangetic and Ultra-Indian tribes, more than 
that of the Malays. But examples are also found of approaches 
to the finer Indoresian forms. The person is shorter than with the 
Malays. The trunk is very long in proportion to the limbs, which 
are lighter and handsomer than with the Malays. The dialects are 
Malay, but all the vocabularies that have been collected preserve 
a variable proportion of non-Malay words. Many of these are 
Mon-Anam, and the Pérak tribes and several of the Southern 
Binuas still use the Kol and Simang first pronoun. The remaining 
non-Malay vocables are mostly Sumatran, but some have remoter 
Indonesian affinities. The civilization of the Binua is of the ruder 
Ultra-indian and Malay kind. Where they have least intercourse 
with the Malays, the dress of the men is still a strip of bark passed 
between the lees and fastened at the waist, and that of the women 
a piece of bark beaten out and wrapped round them from the 
waist to the knees. Where there is regular traffic with the Malays, 
the dress of the latter has been adopted by the males, but the 
cloth sarong of the females retains the scanty dimensions of the 
original bark petticoat. The huts are ruder than those of the 
Malays. Their agriculture 1s confined to the migratory system 
that prevails among all the ruder Himalaic tribes, and much of 
their food is derived from fishing, snaring and hunting, no sorts of 
flesh being rejected. 

The Binua appear to have spread over the Peninsula in pre- 
Malayan ages, extirpating the Simang in the riarrower Southern 
portion. During the Mon-Kambojan era, that people would occupy 
towards them the same relation that the Malays now oceupy. The 
language of the Mons and Kambojans would become the lingua 
franea of the districts around their Colonies and of the rivers on 
both sides of the Peninsula which their praus frequented for barter 


TRIBES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. S7 


with the natives, and it would ultimately, in a large measure, dis- 
place the older dialects of the latter. When, at a comparatively 
modern period, the Malays from Sumatra colonised the Peninsula, 
their language became everywhere current, and the older dialects 
are fast perishing before it. 


The Malays ( Malayu. ) 


The Javanese preceded the Malays as the first dominant mari- 
time people in the later age of Indonesian civilization, and founded 
Settlements in the Peninsula as well asin Sumatra. But in the 
era immediately prior to that of European supremacy, the Malays 
of Menangkabau, extending their conquests to the sea on both sides 
of Sumatra, became the leading and most enterprising naval people 
of the Archipelago. They planted Settlements of their own, or 
formed quarters on almost-every island and on every navigable 
river. 

The Peninsula, as far North as Tennasserim, passed into their 
hands, Malacca becoming the leading maritime State in the Eas- 
tern seas. 

There has been considerable intermuxture of blood between the 
Malays and the Binuas of the interior with the various foreigners 
who settled in their ports—Chinese, Southern Indians ( Klings 
chiefly), Arabs, Portuguese, Burmese, Peguans, Japanese, as well 
as with Javanese, Bugis, Achinese, Dayaks, and other Eastern 
Islanders. Besides the normal variety of characters observable in 
every race, the maritime Malays have been further modified by this 
intermixture. The most common type of the least improved 
Malay is one of the coarsest of the Archipelago. It resembles the 
Siamese more than the sea-board Burman, shewing a similar flat- 
ness and expansion both of the crown and the back of the head, 
the meeting of the two planes being more angular than convex. 
When viewed in front, it bulges out laterally beyond the forehead. 
The nose is low and the lips thick. The lower part of the face is 
sometimes prognathous. The person is broad and squat, the trank 
leng, the limbs short and thick. The Malay varies from this lowest 
type coarse Mongolian with a Negro tendency to the finest furm 
which the Turanian skull can assume without ceasing to be Tura- 
nian. The head becomes nearly oval, the occiput rounded, the 


88 TRIBES INHARITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 


nose palder, and the eye brighter, straight and more liquid. The 
Malay is good-natured, courteous, sociable, gregarious and gossip- 
ing, finding unfailing amusement in very small talk, jokes and 
pleasantries. To superiors, he is extremely deferential, but with no 
taint of the abject or fawning Asiatics of higher civilization. His 
intellect has little power of abstraction, and delights in a minute 
acquaintance with the common things around him, a character that 
reflects itself in his language, which is as rich in distinctions and 
details in the nomenclature of material objects and actions as it is 
poor in all that relates to the operations of the mind. He is slow 
and sluggish, and impatient of continuous labour of mind or body. 
He is greedy, and, when his interests are involved, his promises and 
professions are not to be trusted. His habitual courtesy and reti- 
cence and the influence of his religion mask the sway of passions 
to which he may be secretly yielding and under which he some- 
times becomes rapacious, treacherous and revengeful. It has 
become customary to protest against the dark colours in which the 
earlier European yoyagers painted him, but their error was less in 
what they wrote than in what they left unwritten. Under bad 
native Governments, leading a wandering life at sea, or on thinly 
peopled borders of rivers—the only highways in land covered with 
forest and swamp—trusting to his kris and spear for self-defence, 
holding in traditional respect the powers of the pirate and robber, 
and putting little value on life, the Malay became proverbial for 
feline treachery and bloodthirstiness. Under the Government to 
which Malays have been subjected in Province Wellesley, and which 
has certainly not erred on the side of paternal interference, for it 
has left them as free as English yeomen, they now form a com- 
munity as settled, contented, peaceable and free from serious crime 
as any to be found in British India—a result due to the clearing of 
forests, the formation fof roads, the establishment of a regular 
Police, and the honest administration of the law. 

The Malay treats his children with great affection and an indo- 
lent indulgence. Women are not secluded, and the freedom which 
they enjoy in their paternal homes is little abridged in after-life. 
Early marriage is customary and necessary, for if it were long post- 
poned after puberty, they would not be restrained by their religion 
from the license which the habits of the non-Mahomedan nations 


TRIBES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 89 


of the same race permit to unmarried girls. In the Malay States 
the law sanctions slavery and subjects the person of the female 
slave to the power of her master.* In this Settlement, the Malay 
finds compensation for the deprivation of this right in that of 
divorce, and the extent which it is availed of renders marriage in 
practice little more than the legalisation of temporary concubinage. 
The independence allowed to women, and the manner in which 
their parents and other relatives usually take their part, enable 
them to purchase their divorce, or worry their husbands into grant- 
ing it, whenever they wish to change them. 


Siamese. 


The Siamese do not differ much from the Malays in their physi- 
eal characters. The person has much the same height and form. 
The remarkable flatness of the back of the head is more generally 
present, the profile is also more vertical, the nose is more often 
slightly arched, the mouth smaller and firmer. The chief pecula- 
rities are the lowness of the hairy scalp and the staring expression 
of the eye, caused by the retraction of the upper eyelid. 

The Siamese belong to that branch of the Himalaic race which 
preceded the Tibeto-Burman on this side of the Himalayas. Ata 
very remote period in the history of this branch, the progenitors of 
the Lau migrated to what afterwards became the Chinese province 
of Yun-nan, and thus became, in a large degree, isolated from the 
influence of the sister tribes who spread over the Gangetic basin 
and Ultra-India, while the Mons and Kambojans became the great 
maritime nations from the Irawadi to the Mekong, and the Ana- 
mese occupied the borders of the China Sea as far North as Ton- 
quin. The Lau retained their sequestered inland position until the 
Chinese pushed their conquests and settlements ito Yun-nan, 
when between the 7th and Sth centuries hordes of the Lau re- 
entered the basin of the Irawadi, established themselves at Moung- 
Goung and gradually subjected and partially occupied Assam. Thus 
in the 7th and 8th centuries, and subsequently in a.p. 1224, when 


* But if the master avails himself of his power, in the case of a debt-slave, he 
cloes it at the sacrifice of the debt.—Ep. 


20 TRIBES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 


they founded the Assam rule, a large part of Manipar and the ter- 
ritory now known as the Shan States, their language and civiliza- 
tion had been considerably modified by the influence of the Chinese 
It was not till many centuries later that they sueceeded in expel- 
ling the Kambojans from the lower basin of the Menam and reach- 
ing the sea. From Siam they spread down the Peninsula, and all 
the Malay States appear to have successively been forced or per- 
suaded to acknowledge their suzerainty. At the end of last cen- 
tury, the inhabitants of the territory between Siam and Kedah were 
almost purely Siamese. In 1821, they expelled the Malay Chiefs 
and the greater part of the Malay population from Kedah and 
oceupied that country until about 1842, when it was restored to its 
Native rulers, but as a dependency on Siam. The Southern pro- 
eress of the race led to parties of Siamese settling in various parts 
of Kedah and in the N.E. districts of Province Wellesley, in which, 
Siamese was till lately, and is still to a considerable extent, the 
current language of the oldest settlers, being Samsam, ¢.e., Islamised 
descendants of Siamese with some intermixture of Malay blood. 

The Siamese language is radically Himalaic, but owing chiefly, it 
is probable, to the influence of Chinese, it has been transformed, 
like some of its sister tongues, from a dissyllabic to a monosyllabic 
structure. Remnants of the Himalaic prefixes are found in the 
initial consonants of several words. The forms of the common 
Himalaiec vocables are often broader and more consonantal in 
Siamese and the sister Mon-Anam languages than in the Tibeto- 
Burman, and they retain a similar Archaic character in many of the 
Malayo-Polynesian vocabularies. 


These brief notes will be rendered more intelligible by a refer- 
ence to the general history of the linguistic family to which the 
anguages of the Papuans, the Binua, the Malays, and the Siamese 
alike belong. 

The Archaic-Himalayo-Polynesian formation was related to the 
Seythic on the one side and the Chinese on the other. It possess- 
ed a system of minutely differentiated formatives and pronouns and 


TRIBES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 91 


a tendency to harmonic agglutination and dissyllableism like the 
Archaic Seythic and proto-Scythic tongues. Its present representa- 
tives may be divided into three branches. ‘The first to separate 
from the Tibetan or Himalayan mother stem was the Malayo-Poly- 
nesian. In the great Asiatic Archipelago it has preserved more of 
the Archaic structure than the continental branches, and has deve- 
loped the original phonetic tendencies until it has become highly 
harmonic, and, in one of its leading and most influential varieties, 
very vocalic. The next branch that left the Himalayan cradle was 
the East Tibetan or Mon-Anam. It retains the direct collocation 
and many of the Archaic forms of the common roots that are found 
in Malayo-Polynesian. The third branch was the West Tibetan or 
TVibeto-Burman, to which the present Tibetan and sub-Himalayan, 
with many of the Ultra-Indian dialects, including Burman, belong. 
Its distinctive trait is an inverse collocation which may be safely 
attributed to its immemorial contact with the dialects of the Scy- 
thic hordes, who have, from time to time, intruded into Tibet. Both 
of the continental branches are very impoverished forms of the 
Archaic-Himalayo-Polynesian. ‘'hey are distinguished from the 
insular branch by the decay and in many of them the loss of the 
ancient phonology. From the influence of the conterminous and 
intrusive Chinese, or at least from a tendency which is common to 
them. with it, they now partake in various degrees of the crude 
monosyllabic and tonic phonology which characterises that lan- 
euage. The dialects that have had the longest and closest contact 
with Chinese, e.g., the Anam and Siamese of the Mon-Anam 
branch, the Burmese and Karin of the Tibeto-Burman, are now 
monosyllabic and present so great a contrast to the harmonic 
languages of the istands, that it isnot surprising that Dr. PrircHarp 
and other ethnologists have classed them with the Chinese. On 
the other hand, many of the Gangetic dialects that have not been 
exposed to contact with Chinese, or with their eastern sisters since 
their transformation, retain harmonic and agglutinative traits, 
similar to those that are found with a much more free and power- 
ful development in the Oceanic tongues. 


The fereign races found in the Straits Settlements are very nume- 
rous, but to describe them, however briefly, would be to enter on 


92 TRILES INHABITING PENANG AND PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 


the ethnology of a large portion of Asia and Europe. Chinese from 
Kuantung and Hok-kien furnish a large portion of our population, 
and Chinese from other provinces are found cither among the 
general population, or at the Roman Catholic Mission College. 
Anamese, Kambojans, Burmese and natives of various parts of 
India, Persia, Arabia, Eastern Africa and Europe represent Conti- 
nental ethnography, while, in addition to the Malays—Achinese, 
Battas, Javanese and Bugis represent the Oceanic. In Singapore, 
Dayaks, natives of the Moluccas and other eastern islanders, are 
also to be found. There has also been more or less admixture of 
blood among all these races, with various results. The most dis- 
tinct classes thus produced are the Portuguese of Malacca, who, 
from the non-renewal of European blood are now more Malay than 
Portuguese ; the native Chinese of enang and Malacca, who from 
constant intermarriage with fresh immigrants from China, have 
nearly lost all trace of their Malay ancestry on the female side; 
and the so-called Jawi Pakan, a class between the Kling and the 
Malay which retains its distinctive characters by a continued inter- 
mixture with both races of its progenitors. 


[No. 8.] 
JOURNAL 


OF CLHE 


SermAlIS BRANCH 


QB) it Ee 


meal ASIATIC SOCIETY. 


DECEMBER, 1881. 


PeepbiSHED HALF-YEARLY. 


SINGAPORE: 
PRINTED AT THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 


1882. 


AGENTS OF THE SOCIETY: 


London & America,,.. TRipNeR & Co. | Paris,...Exnest Leroux & Cre. 


ABLE OF CONTENTS. 


=o — 


The Endau and its Tributaries, by D. F. A. Hervey, 


Itinerary from Singapore to the Source of the 
Sémbrong and up the Madek, 


Petara, or Sea Dyak Gods, by the Revd. J. Perham, 


Klouwang and its Caves, West Coast of Avchin, translated By 
Den. A. Hervey, 


Miscellaneous Notes :— 
Varieties of “* Gétah”’ and “* Rotan,” 
The “Ipoh ” Tree, Pérak, 


Cemparative Vocabulary, 


PAGE. 


93 


125 


133 


158 


159 


161 
162 


x} 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


BY 
es As, ERB VB ve 


| The valuable geographical knowledge obtained by Mr. Hervey 
in this journey is shewn in the trace of the Endau River and its 
tributaries as laid down in the new map of the Malay Peninsula 
published last year under the auspices of this Society.—Eprtor. 
1st January, 1882. | 


aeaif N August, 1879, being obliged to seek relaxation from 
work, I determined to try and clear up the point sug- 
gested by Loaan’s account of the two rivers Sém- 
brong,(*) which he supposed to be one and the same 
stream connecting the Kndau, and the Batu Pahat(?)— 
flowing respectively into the China Sea and into the 
Malacca Straits—and thus giving a navigable passage between 
the two seas. I had also in view the object of collecting such rem- 
nants as might still be obtainable of the Juhkun dialects of Johor, 
more particularly that of a small tribe on the Madek, one of the 
tributaries of the Hndau, which I had been assured by the Dato’ 
of the Lénggiu (*) Jakuns (on my trip to Blimut, early in 1879) 
differed from that of all the other Jakun tribes in Johor. 


(2) See p.p. 101 and 103, Journal ae the Straits Branch of the 
Royal Asiatic Society, No. 3, July, 1879 


(Batu Pahat,’ the hewn rock. A oils and other instruments 
are said to have been found by some Malays digging in the neigh- 
bourhood many years ago. his particular chiselling has been 
attributed to the Siamese. There is also a tradition that it was 
here the Portuguese got their stone for the Malacca Fort, but I 
believe it was obtained much nearer Malacca. 


(8)JI could not obtain any clue to the origin of this name from 
either Malays or Jakuns ; but it may be we ell to draw attention to 
the Siamese word “ Khlang Kiau,” which is asserted in the “Scjarah 
Malayu” to have been the origin of the name of a portion of the 
Johor country. I believe there is a place in Pahang bearing a very 
similar, if not identically the same, name. 


94 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


On the night of the 13th August, I left Singapore in a yébeng, 
lent me by Ungku Mtsrp, brother of the Maharaja, with Cun 
Motsa, an Official of the Moar River, who was familiar with the 
Endau, and a motley crew of eight Malays, comprising natives of 
Johor, Pahang, Tréngginu and Kelantan. ‘The Pahang men, as is 
natural, approximate most nearly in speech to the Johor dialect, 
but I noticed differences such as “‘ sungal” for “sungei,” &c. The 
Tréngeanu men have a sharp, narrow accent, and a way of shorten- 
ing off their words at the end, suchas “sampa” for “ sampei;” 
they have also a nasal ending as “ttain” (“ain ” as in French 
“bain ”) for “tian.” The Johor men were constantly laughing at 
the others for their outlandish accent, but, as they said, what else 
could be expected from drang bdrat—those western folk. (7) 

About 3 p.m. on the 16th, or about 38% days after leaving 
Singapore, we reached the mouth of the Endau, and at 11 a.m. on 
the 17th, we were alongide the steps of the Cuz Ma Anrs Police 
Station, which is conveniently situated on a point of land between 
the converging streams Endau and Sémbrong. 

After consultation with Cur Ma Att, I decided to ascend the 
Stmbrong first, and make for its source, this being the trip which 
would absorb the greater portion of my time. I found it necessary 
to give up the idea of going to Gtinong Banang on the Batu Pahat 
River, in order to make time for a visit to the Madek Jakuns on 
my return from Hulu Sémbrong. The account given of Ginong 
Jining, which was ascended by Macnay, made me wish very much 
to attempt the ascent. Iwas told that ladders had to be constructed 
to enable them to scale the rocks in some places; that the rocks were 
very fine, and plants flourished there which were not to be found in 
other parts of the jungle; while the view from the top was well 
worth seeing. In that neighbourhood too, on Sungei Mas, resided 
the Raja Benbak, he having removed a year or two before from the 
Madek, and a visit to hun would probably afford the best opportu- 


(7) This may, at first sight, seem a rather strange expression, but 
a glance at the map will show that, though we may be accustomed 
to think of these countries as lying to the North and perhaps a 
little East of us, they really he to the West of Singapore, or,.what 
is the same thing, Johor Bharu. ‘he same misconception is some- 
times found ot prevail regarding the relative positions of Liverpool 
and Edinburgh. . 


THE ENDAU AND TTS TRIBUTARIES. 95 


nity of rescuing from oblivion a good deal of interesting informa- 
tion about his branch of the Jakun tribe. I may take this opportu- 
nity of correcting an erroneous statement I made in my account of 
a trip to Blimut,(?) that Ginong Janing was in Pahang territory ; 
it lies in Jchor territory on the right bank of the Upper Endan. 

As the Malays required a day or two to prepare a good-sized 
jalor for the ascent of the Stmbrong, I occupied the 18th with 
a visit to a hill called Tanah Abang,(?) a mile or two below the 
station, with the object of getting compass-bearings from the top. 
The first part of the way took us through alternate hillocks and 
hollows of a black springy soil. This turned out, however, to be the 
wrong path, and we went back up the river a bit, and landed this 
time on the right track, coming, shortly after landing, upon old 
tin-workings, but J could detect no trace of tin in the granite and 
sand; there were a few plantain trees—relics of human cultiva- 
tion; a little further off there were, I was told, other tin-workings, 
which had been undertaken by a Singapore man, and were satis- 
factory, but had to be abandoned for want of funds. We found 
here a very pretty small plant with white-striped leaves growing 
by the roots of a tree; it is edible, having a pleasant acid flavour 
like the sorrel leaf, and is used by the natives with the areca nut 
when they cannot get the betel leaf; it is called daun chdru. We 
reached the top of the hill in an hour or so, but I was obliged to 
give up the idea of taking bearings, the hill being very steep, and 
its sides being covered with big trees near enough the summit to 
block up the view in all directions in spite of several of the smaller 
ones being cut down. 

One of our party said that he knew of a spot which had been 
mentioned by some érang hulu, i.e., Jakuns, where they had lit 
a fire on a hill-side in the jungle to cook their food, using some 
black rocks, which they found there, to support their rice-pot, and 
the man added that, after their meal, they noticed that some of the 
rock had melted and was trickling down in a dark shining stream. 

The next day, accordingly, | got my informant to shew me the 
spot, which proved to be on the side of Bikit Langkap, a short way 


(+) Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 
No. 3, July, 1879. 


(?) “Tanah Abang,” red earth. 


96 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


up the river beyond the station ; I found some weather-worn and 
honeycombed rocks cropping up from the surface; I broke off some 
pieces with my hammer and chisel with much difficulty, the rock 
being exceedingly hard, and from this, and its colour and weight, 
I took it to be oxide of iron of good quality. Whether this would 
have melted under the degree of heat to which it was probably 
subjected may be doubtful. This hill appeared to me to be merely 
a southern continuation of the Tanah Abang ridge. Jts name 
derives from a tree—Langkap. (7) 

The next day, 20th, we started in a jalor—Cuz Mdsa, Cur 
Yusur, myself and five paddlers—for Hflu ' Sembrong. About 
noon we observed a large black monkey, about the size of a 
medium bérak (the cocoanut monkey) up in a tree; he had a long 
tail and very white teeth ; he was making loud, guttural noises, and 
was evidently under the influence of some emotion; the men said a 
tiger was near, which caused him to give vent to his alarm in this 
way ; they called him cheng kok. 

21st. Harly this morning saw a red-headed snake, about four 
feet long, go into the water; no one could name it. River very 
winding so far. 

22nd. The river being very narrow, winding and rapid, we 
started with poles to-day, and made much better progress. So far, 
I calculate, we have made at the rate of twelve to fourteen 
miles a day. ‘’o-day snags and shallows are troublesome, to say 
nothing of being constantly on the look-out for the onak Cong 
thorny trailers) of the rattan. About 11.30 got into a fine, straight 
bit of the river, where we put onaspurt. The foliage on the banks 
was beautiful, being charmingly diversified with the feathery fronds 
of the rattan; the river continued wide for about a couple of hours, 
and later became too deep for the poles once or twice. Westopped 
for the night near the junction of the Stngkar with the Sémbrong, 
but the Séngkar, though boasting a name of its own, scems to be 
but a trésan of the Sémbrong. A Malay trader with Jakuns 
passed just before 6 p.m., saying they would reach Kumbang about 
S P.M.,a contrast to the leisurely progression of a Malay crew, with 
which I had to be contented. 

_ 28rd. To-day, for the first two hours, the course was very nar- 


ae ) The “genggong,” a sort of native jew’s harp is made by ‘the 
aborigines of this wood. 


THE BNDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 97 


row, after which we got into a fine broad stream, just before reach- 
ing Tamok, which was a settlement in Locan’s time, 82 years 
ago, but is now abandoned; after the labyrinth through which we 
had been groping our way, the view which now burst upon us was 
like enchantment, with its broad lake-hke stream, enclosed, so far as 
the eye could see, by the jungle-clad base of Jakas; twenty-five 
minutes with the paddles and a southward turn brought into view 
the fine hill of Pérgikar Btsar, while the stream slightly narrowed ; 
a few minutes more, and with Paloh Tampui begins, if possible, still 
more enchanting scenery, a string of lakes filled with islets of 
rdsau, mingled with other growths; in three-quarters of an hour 
the stream narrows a little more, but is still forty yards wide; here 
J found nearly four fathoms of water; another quarter of an hour 
and the lakes came to an end, and we once more had to squeeze 
and twist our way about for ten minutes along a stream which was 
barely wide enough for our boat; then again it widened to some 
fifty yards across, and a quarter of an hour with the paddles 
brought us to Kumbang. Here are five Jakun huts in a tapioca 
plantation running down the river’s edge; behind them I found two 
or three'tombs, of one of which L attempted a sketch ; it was that of 
the Jtiro-krah, one of the subordinate Jakun chiefs. The illustra- 
tion represents the péndam or tomb of the Juro-krah—the head 
of this Jakun settlement—who died of fever nine days before my 
visit. The body hes about three feet under ground, the tomb, which 
is made of earth battened smooth, rising about the same height 
above the surface. A little ditch runs round the grave, wherein 
the spirit may paddle lis canoe. The body les with the feet 
pointing towards the West. The ornamental pieces at each end 
of the grave answer to tombstones and are called nésan, which 
is borrowed from Malay; on the other side of them are seen the 
small, plain, upright sticks, called tangga sémdngat (the spirit or 
life steps) to enable the spint to leave the grave when he requires. 
It will be seen that there are four horizontal beams on each side 
of the grave, joined in a framework, making sixteen in all, laid on 
the top of the grave, and so forming a sort of enclosure, in which 
are placed, for the use of the deceased, a témpirong (cocoanut shell 
to drink from), a damar (or torch)in its kék¢ (or stand) of rattan, a 
béliong (adze) handle, and a kwéli (or cooking-pan) ; while outside 
this framework hangs the ambong (or basket worn on the back 


98 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


with shoulder-straps, and made of méranti or some other jungle-tree 
bark) for the deceased to carry his firewood in. Close by the tomb 
of the Jiro-krah was that of his niece. I noted three points of 
difference between them: the first was that the framework on the 
top of the niece’s grave consisted of three horizontal beams, instead 
of four, or twelve instead of sixteen ; 2ndly, one of the ornamental 
head-pieces was shaped as in figure 2, the other as in that of her 
uncle; 8rdly, that inside the framework were placed only a cocoa- 
nut shell, a torch on its stand, and a little sugar-cane. Not far 
off was a site marked off for a child’s grave by a cocoanut shell and 
some cloth hung upon sticks. In another direction was a child’s 
grave half-finished, the lower framework being in position and 
some earth being loosely heaped up in its enclosed space, while a 
small framework, intended for the top, lay close by. 

The Jakuns of this settlement were engaged by Malays in pro- 
curing rattans. 

I stopped here about a couple of hours, but did not find any one 
conversable, partly owing, no doubt, to their having never before 
seen a European, and partly, perhaps, to our numbers and the size 
of our boat, which may have suggested some suspicion as to the 
object of our visit. After we had been a quarter of an hour on our 
way, the river again became a fine broad stream; ten minutes later 
I found 74 fathoms of water at Péngkalan Pomang; and twenty 
minutes more paddling ended what may be called the second set 
of lakes. We now had to force our painful way through a wilder- 
ness of rdésau and rétan, which fortunately was soon accomplshed, 
and we were comparatively at our ease for a short time; and then 
had another short struggle, and another equally short respite, after 
which the remaining one and a half hours’ work was through the 
narrows. We put up for the mght near a dilapidated hut. The 
sound of elephants was once heard, but they did not come near 
enough to disturb us. 

24th.—We were eleven hours on the move yesterday, amd did not 
get off till after nine this morning. By 11 o’clock, 7.e., just before 
we reached Londang, the river suddenly widened to 50 yards, or 
more, and we shortly took to poling; the stream narrows again before 
Kénalau, which we reached about 12.20. This Jakun kampong, the 
largest on the Sémbrong, is presided over by the Béntira, who came 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 99 


to see me ou board the jalor; he is a fine-looking man, powerfully 
built, very dark, and speaks Malay, like the rest of his race, with 
a very broad accent, but there is something pleasing in their into- 
nation, which seems, in a way, to suggest their natural simplicity of 
character. He promised me men with a smaller jalor to take me 
further up the stream, which grows too small for our boat, next 
day. Later, I visited him at his own house, a good-sized one, raised 
about six feet from the ground, in a kampong 200 or 300 yards from 
the river, and tried to extract a vocabulary of lis native dialect 
from him, but it was a failure, with the exception of the following 
words :— 


English. Seubrong. 
Woman étinak (+) 

Father Embei 
Ant Merét 

: Dog Koyok 
Elephant Péchem bésar 
Mosquito Réngit (?) 
Cocoanut Niu (5) 
Honey Manisan lébah (¢*) 
Yesterday Kémaghik (°) 
Cold Sédek 
Come Kia 
Here Ké-eng 


(7) Malay with “k” added. “ Bétina” in Malay means properly 


the female of animals, “ Péramptian” 


being used to designate 


womankind, but “ Bétina”’ is often used in place of it. 
(?) In Malay, a small fresh-water shell. 


()alay.“ Nior.” 


(+) Malay periphrasis. 
(®) Malay ‘“ Kélmarin.”’ 


100 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 
English, Sembrong. 
One Sa (7) 
Branch (of ariverortree) Chédang 
Green, raw, (in taste) Méeét 
Grave (tomb) Péendan 


A few days’ longer sojourn would, no doubt, have brought a few 
more words to light, but the fact is that the Jakun dialect, with 
but one or two exceptions, is a thing of the past, not only in this 
part of the country, but throughout that portion of the Peninsula 
which lies South of Malacca, having completely disappeared before 
the influence of the Malays, which has been at work for a time 
which may be reckoned by centuries. Amongst themselves the 
Jakuns speak Malay only, a relic of their old tongue but seldom 
cropping up in their conversation ; and these are the only traces of 
it remaining, unless we except the pantang kdpur or bhdsa 
kdpur as Logan calls it. In that peculiar vocabulary (excepting 
of course words of Malay origin and manufacture), I have no 
doubt that we find embalmed relics of the aboriginal tongue, which, 
but for the existence of a curious superstition, would have been 
lost to us. 

This practically complete disappearance of the Jakun dialects in 
the South of the Peninsula is owing, doubtless, to the more complete 
intercourse between the aborigines and the Malays, which has been 
rendered practicable, both from the Hast and the West, by the nar- 
rowness of this part of the Peninsula, and the easy means of tra- 
versing it afforded by the rivers in the absence of any extensive 
central mountain ranges. 

There are still several Jakun settlements in Johor, viz., those on 
the Sayong and the Lénggiu (the main confluents which form the 
Johor River) on the Bénut, the Pontian, and the Batu Pahat rivers 
flowing into the Straits of Malacca: on the eastern side are various 
little settlements on the Stmbrong and its tributaries, including 
the small community, the greater portion of which are settled on 


(1) Malay “Satu” (?). 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 101 


the Madek, while the remainder, with their Raja, occupy the Mas, 
a tributary of the Upper Endau. The foregoing may be described 
as the orang hilw jinak, or the tame tribes of the interior. 
There are, however, within the limits of the Johor territory, I be- 
lieve, a few representatives also of the drang liar, or wild men, 
as the tamer tribes, conscious of their own superior civilization, 
are proud to call them; these reside near the source of the Endau, 
awnong the Ségamat hills, and, being out of the ordinary course of 
the Malay trader, have not altogether lost their hold of their own 
language. 

The Batin Tuha of the Linggiu and Siyong Jakuns, a man of 
great age, had no recollection of a dialect peculiar to his own race, 
the only non-Malay words in use among them being that for dog, 
viz., “ koyok,” which recalls “kayape” given by RaFrtss in his 
short list for the same animal. (') 

Macthay, six or seven years ago, passing through the same country, 
seems to have experienced the same difficulty that I have in discov- 
erg traces of the aboriginal dialect; and forty years ago Logan 
noticed the fact that Malay had superseded it, while the list of 
Jokang (Jakun?) words given by Rarryes in 1809 (*) shews that 
the process of decay was already far advanced amongst the tribes 
in the immediate vicinity of Malacca. 

Malay camphor has been highly prized by the Chinese from an 
early period, and the Malays must, at the outset, have had recourse 
to the aborigines to help them in their search for this precious 
article of commerce. 

Reasons are not wanting which point to the conclusion that in 
the pantang kdpur we find relics of the Jakui dialects. I use the 
plural advisedly, for those of the Pontian and Madek are different 
from the rest. 

The reasons may be stated as follows. The Malays are not the 
originators of the pantang kadpur, but learn it from the Jakuns, 
who may primd facie be assumed to be unequal to the coinage 
of a special language to suit their object in this case, while it is 
not at all unlikely that those of them who had dealings with the 
Malays should become aware of the advantages of their position, 


(‘) No. 4 Journal, Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 
December, 1879, p. 6. 


102 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


and turn their language to account in the search for camphor, by 
representing it as a charm, without which all search would be un- 
availing. ‘Thus, while self-interest would prompt the retention 
and handing down of a sufficient vocabulary to meet their wants 
in this respect, their constantly increasing intercourse with the 
Malays would inevitably prove fatal to the rest of their language. 
The vocabulary of the paniang kdpur itself, too, would, in the 
lapse of time, naturally suffer diminution by the death of noted 
collectors and the loss occurring through transmission from gen- 
eration to generation, and their own language being forgotten, 
the Jakuns would have recourse to the Malay periphrases which 
now form so large a portion of it, and which shew them to have 
been unequal to the invention of a special vocabulary for a particu- 
lar purpose. , 

But more to the point than any theories on the subject, is the 
fact, that some of the older or non-Malay words are identical with 
words of the same meaning in some of the aboriginal dialects fur- 
ther North; the following are instances :— 


JO'-oh to Drink 
Chendia a Hut 
Tongkat the Sun 
Sclimma Tiger 


while the followime shew signs of connection :— 


Buglish. Pantang kapur. Scmang. 
Deer Scésunggong Sig, Sug 
White Pintul Peélctan, Beltan 
Tongue Pelen, Lin Lentak, Lentek 
Jakun. 
Pig Samungko Kimo, Kumoku 


These examples are but few, doubtless, but, pending further col- 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 1038 


lection and comparison of aboriginal dialects and pantang kdpur, 
may, I think, be accepted as sufficiently confirming my view of the 
matter. 

M. Mixiuno-Mactay also regards the pantang kdpur as being 
a relic of the old aboriginal tongue (Journal No. 1, Straits 
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, July, 1878, p.p. 39-40), 
dissenting from the view of Locay, who seems to look upon it 
as having been manufactured expressly in accordance with the 
superstition, for he says (Journal of the Indian Archipelago, Vol. L., 
p. 263) “whoever may have been the originator of this super- 
“stition, it 1s evidently based on the fact that although camphor 
“trees are abundant, it very frequently happens that no camphor 
“can be obtained from them.” ‘“ Were it otherwise,” said an old 
Béntia, who was singularly free from superstitions of any kind, 
“camphor is so valuable that not a single full-grown tree would 
“be left in the forest.” LoGan mentions the eating of earth as a 
concomitant of the use of pantang kdpur; another sacrifice 
required by this superstition is the complete abstention, while in 
search of camphor, from bathing or washing. These accompani- 
ments of the superstition may be considered perhaps to bear against 
the theory I have advocated, but without them the pantang 
kapur would hardly be complete, and they would readily be sug- 
gested by the poyangs, to whose cunning and influence over the 
Malays, Locan bears striking testimony. J have myself observed 
the complete belicf the latter have in their powers, the Malays at 
Kwala Madek, for instance, asserted of the Jtiro-krah resident there, 
that he used to walk round the kampong at night and drive away 
the tigers without any weapons. 

At this place, Kampong Kénalau, I found a clearing, but no culti- 
vation; on asking the. reason, J was told they were too busy get- 
ting rattans for the Malays, which they do at a fixed price in rice 
and other articles, such as clothing, crockery, pdrangs, salt, and 
tobacco. They have become Malays as to dress as well as in lan- 
guage. : 

One young girl rather amused my men by the affectation of con- 
cealing her face with her kain tiédong kepdla after the Malay 
fashion ; they likewise imitate the Malays in the occasional intro- 
duction of an Allah into their conversation, but they have no 


104 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES, 


religion, not having adopted Mahomedanism as yet (the legends I 
referred to in my trip to Blimut seem to be quite unknown to the 
body of the people), though such women as are married to Malays 
have to be formally converted, not, however, unless they are really 
married, 

The Bentara presented me with a fragment of a very fine 
prism of smoky quartz, which he said had been brought to him by 
one of his men some time previously. ‘Two of them were at the foot 
of Gtnong Bechtak, (7) when a large boulder came rolling down 
the steep, they saw something ghttering become detached from it 
in its downward course, and secured it; but thinking it too bulky, 
they smashed it and brought home only the fragment which was 
given to me; the original prism must have been 7 or 8 inches lone 
by 8 or 4 in diameter. 

On the 25th, I started in a small jalor with two Malays and four 
Jakuns for the source of the Stmbrong, and after 34 hours’ work 
along a very winding, narrow and often blocked-up stream, reached 
the landing-place, Péngkalan Tongkes, where our boat-work ended. 

About 1 hour 40 minutes from Kenailau we came upon what was 
called kdyu téelékong, a tree stem sunk in the stream; it used 
to overhang the river, and was said to be pudka, or haunted by 
an evil-spirit who was certain to cause death or illness to any one 
who should cut it. After 14 hours’ smart walking from Ptngkalan 
Tongkes we reached Ulu Mélitir. Cnu Musa told me a story, the 
second day of our ascent of the Sembrong, about the dar sd@iwa 
réendam (water python),(?) which I heard at the time with some 
incredulity ; subsequent personal experience, however, induced me 
to be less sceptical. Cur Musa’s story was that a Malay of his ac- 
quaintance was asleep one night in his boat on a river when he was 
disturbed by a pull at his sleeping-cloth, on rousing himself he 
found the intruder to be a water python, which, finding itself 
observed, got away before the Malay could get hold of his parang 


(-) A two-peaked mountain of the Bélimut range. 
(7?) This is rendered “water python,” being, accordmg to the 
Malays, the water variety of the “iilar sawa,” which is their name 


for the “python,” but it is hardly necessary to observe that they 
are unsafe authorities on such points. 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES, 105 


(wood-cutting knife). Having placed his knife conveniently, the 
man went to sleep again, but before the night was past, he was 
again disturbed in the same way; this time he got hold of his 
pdrang in time to make a cut at the reptile through the awning 
of his boat, over which he saw it making its escape, and when day- 
light came he found traces of blood about the gash he had made in 
the awning. My own experience was as follows: On the evening 
of our arrival at Kénalau, I was lying in the middle of the boat just 
dozing off, while two or three of the men were discussing their rice 
forward; all of a sudden If heard in my sleep cries of “lar, tian, 
ilar” (“asnake, Sir, a snake!”) repeated with increasing energy, 
till I thought I was being pursued by some huge serpent, and 
awaked finding myself running into the middle of the men’s rice: 
on enquiring what it was, the youth who had cried out said that 
happening to look in my direction he had seen a large snake on the 
horizontal support of the awning within a yard of my face swaying 
to and fro, looking alternately at the lamp which was hanging at 
my feet, and at me, (my spectacles, which no doubt reflected the lamp, 
probably attracted his attention), and the youth was then so horror- 
stricken that he could do nothing but shriek at me, thinking every 
moment I should be attacked; while he was telling me this, one 
of the others went at the beast with his pdrang, but was too late 
to eet nearit. When Cur Musa came on board and heard of this, 
he was quite excited, said at once that it was a water python 
(which recalled the story he had told me three days before) and 
had the boat moved a little further up the stream where the river 
was a little move open. 

At Melctir, we found a good-sized ddéda lang (+) hut. Here we 
decided to put up for the night, as we wanted a clear day to ect 
to the simpe: and return. The next morning, half an honv’s rapid 
walking through very wet jungle, full of swamps and slippery roots, 
brought us to a small shallow stream about six feet wide flowing 
through rdsau tikus(?) (a small graceful variety of the résau which 
grows so abundantly in the Johor river) ; this was called the Pang- 
gong and issued from a swamp which was described by the Jakuns 


(*) “* Dada lang,” breast of a kite; 7.c., a half-roof or “‘lean-to.” 


(2) ~ Tikus,” rat, is commonly used to indicate a small variety of 
anything. 


106 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


as very extensive, and so full of dense undergrowth and rattans, 
that it had never been penetrated. 


Just North of where we came upon it, the Panggong bifurcated, 
itself flowing northward, till it joined the Melctir, while the other 
branch, which was the source of the Batu Pahat S¢mbrong, flowed at 
first westward and then northward for some distance parallel with 
the Panggong, making a series of curious loops called by the Malays 
simpei or hoops. A Malay once thought he would facilitate the 
communication between the two sides of the Peninsula by cutting 
a channel which should connect the Sémbrong (Batu Pahat) and 
the Panggong, but he had no sooner set to work than he was taken 
ill, which was a clear warning that the powers of the jungle were 
unfavourable to his undertaking, and he accordingly abandoned it. 
After the simpei the Sémbrong and Panggong flow westward 
and eastward, towards the Batu Pahat and Mélétir, respectively. 
It will be seen, from what has been stated above, that if we consider 
the swamp as water, the space between the Panggong and the 
Méléetir may be regarded as an island. Though the names change 
before we reach the source, it is clear that the two Sémbrongs have 
& common source, afterwards separating; and though they may 
thus be said to be originally one and the same stream, yet it was 
hardly in this way that they were regarded by Locan, who seems 
to have looked upon them as a sort of canal across the Peninsula ; 
whereas really they issue as one stream from a swamp on rising 
ground and bifurcate immediately afterwards. None the less, of 
course, is Johor, literally speaking, an island. 

Having satisfied myself on these points, and being pressed for 
time, I eave up the idea of going to the simper, and we made our way 
back to PéngkAlan Tongkes and reached Kénalau in the middle of 
the afternoon. Started on our return journey about noon the fol- 
lowing day, the 27th, and reached the Kwala Stmbrong Station just 
before 11 p.m. on the 28th, z.e., did in thirty-five hours a distance 
we had taken five and a half days to cover in the ascent !—forty-two 
hours actually on the way. 

About 9 pw. on the 29th, I started down the Hndau to take the 
course from the mouthup to the Station which I had been unable 
to do on the way up. J returned on the afternoon of the 31st, 
having succeeded in my object. At the Padang Police Station, or 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 107 


rather at Kampong Padang, about three-quarters of a mile from the 
mouth of the Endan, I found a Tréngginu Chinaman just started 
with a new house, and cultivating the ground round him; he an- 
nounced his intention of putting up fishing stakes till the N. E. 
monsoon set in. He is, I believe, the only Chinaman on the Johor 
side of the Hndau; he was a Tréngednu born man, and had 
kept a shop and opened a gambier plantation there, but he 
said he could not stand the ways of the present Sultan, and 
had resolved to try his luck elsewhere; though he described 
the country as a fine one, and likely to be prosperous and open- 
ed up if industrious folk get a fair chance. If this were a soli- 
tary case, the story might raise suspicion against the narrator, but I 
believe no one has a good word to say for the present Sultan of 
Trengganu. With regard to the Kwala Endau, and the N. E. mon- 
soon, which, of course, greatly hampers communication and trade, 
our friend the Chinaman said that vessels lie behind Tanjong Kém- 
pit for water, and it is not impossible that the extension of a small 
breakwater beyond it, or from Kéban Darat, might make a safe 
place even during the N. KE. monsoon. 

On the 2nd September, having re-ascended the Sembrong a bit, 
we entered the Kahang, a stream which takes its rise in Ginong 
Bliimut, and about 3.15 p.m. we reached Kwala Madek (Jakun 
kampong). Here we put up for the night, and were detained till 
the 4th, Cus Manomep Aut’s promised Jakuns not being ready, 
but engaged at another kampong preparing for a rattan-collecting 
expedition into the jungle on behalf of some Malay traders we 
found here. These latter, however, went up the river after them 
the evening of our arrival, and succeeded in stopping them, to my 
satisfaction, for my time was drawing very short. One of these 
traders was a Batu Bahira man; he seemed to be quite a travelled 
man, knowing a good deal of the Peninsula, as well as Sumatra. 
Among his experiences in the latter country, was three years’ trading 
in the Battak country. He described the Battaks as beg divided 
into three tribes, and spoke highly of their prosperity and power ; 
the mountain tribes he praised as remarkably good horsemen, stating 
that they rode their ponies recklessly down steep slopes at full 
speed, and sometimes stood on their ponies’ backs, instead of riding 
astride them. He was very enthusiastic on the Achinese question, 


105 THE EXDAU AND 1TS TRIBUTARIES. 


affirming that the Dutch could never do much harm so long as the 
Battaks supported the Achinese: they could furnish them all sorts 
of supphes, including gunpowder, and the blockade was useless ; 
while he went on to add that if the Battaks should decide upon 
giving the Achinese active assistance, the Dutch would have 
seriously to look to themselves; for, in his opinion, if the Battaks 
chose to set to work, they could drive the Dutch clean out of the 
country, such a high estimate had he formed of their resources 
and warlike capabilities, not to mention the very large population 
of the country. 

This trader accompanied me up the river, in order to get the 
labour of the Jakuns on their return trip, after leaving-me. I 
found one or two Jakuns here suffermmg from what must have 
been rheumatism, or the results of ague, and left sal volatile and 
quinine with them. On the morning of the 4th got off at last, had 
to stop half an hour on account of the rain, and, after an hour and 
twenty minutes’ progress, entered on our left a channel connecting 
the Madek with the Kahang, the passage of which into the Madek 
took us about 20 minutes. A heavy shower detained us at Pinekalan 
Duirian, and we prevailed upon one of the Jakuns to get the honey- 
comb from a bees’ nest in a tree close by; it was rather old and 
dry, but I got half a cup of honey from it of a rather peculiar fla- 
vour, which my Chinese boy appreciated more than I did; we 
moored for the night opposite Padang Jérkeh. 

About an hour and a half before stopping for the night we had 
put on shore a couple of men with dogs to hunt pélandok,(*) as they 
call the ndépoh, which is what they mostly catch, and is a size 
larger than the pélandok. Our men succeeded in securing a young 
nipoh. A good lot of snags to-day, and river very winding, banks 
high a great part of the way. Caught a frog perched on a log in 
the stream, the variety of kdtak called baak, from the noise 
he makes probably—a high soprano—* wak, wak, wak,” which con- 
trasts curiously with the deep notes of some of his relations; I 
measured him and found his dimensions as follows: body 4 inches 
long, 14 inches broad, head across the eyes 14 inches; forelegs 3 
inches long at stretch; hind legs 6 inches long at stretch. His 


(:) “Pélandok”’ seems to be used generically oftener than spe- 
cifically. 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 109 


skin was rugged, and of a blackish-brown colour, developing a 
yellowish tint towards the hind quarters, he had 4 toes in the fore 
feet which were not webbed, while the hind feet, containing 5 toes, 
were webbed. All the Jakuns, on being questioned after dinner, 
professed complete ignorance of the route via Blumut or Chimun- 
dong, but, Lam afraid, suspicions as to the duration of the rice sup- 
ply had something to do with their ignorance, as the route in 
question involved one or perhaps two days’ additional travelling. 

oth September.—Though eight and a half hours elapsed from the 
time of starting in the morning to our anchoring in the afternoon, 
some idea of the slowness of our progress may be formed from the 
fact that we were in motion little more than half of the time, over 
four hours being spent in getting on to and off snags, and cutting 
through them, and grounding on shallows. Caught ‘han patong, 
and tkan umbut-uwmbut or kdwan-as it is also called; the former 
run to the size of about eight to the kati, the latter to about four to 
the kati, and have a dark brownish-black upper part, belly of a 
white hue, tail pinkish-red. The péelandok hunt was goimg on 
in the morning, and the finish of one of the chases took place close 
to our boat; the victim, being hard pressed by the dogs, in 
hopes of spoiling the scent, took to the water, only keeping its 
head just above the surface in a hollow in the bank; it was suc- 
cessful in its object; the dogs were puzzled and passed the spot : 
but the prey was not to escape, for CHE Musa got into the water 
and dived, coming up just at the right spot, and captured the 
wretched animal while still intent upon the dogs, whose yells of 
excitement were still audible. 

Saw the first b?rtam plant in these parts. Jungle a good deal 
more open the last day or two, at all events for some distance from 
the river banks, otherwise the p?landok chase would hardly have 
been practicable. 

7th September.—Vo-day again out of 8} hours’ boating, more than 
44 were taken up with snags, shallows, &c., though part of the 


remaining time we travelled a fair pace. 

On stopping for the night, found one of the boats had secured a 
fine téman or timan of some five kati in weight; it was very good 
with chili, though having little flavour of its own. This fish runs 
to forty kat? in weight and devours its own young. 


110 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


7th September —To-day 44 hours brought us to Chéndia Bemban, 
the end of our boating journey; of this 1} hours were lost in the 
usual way. 

Passed some wild pinang trees. After passing a snag, some 
overhanging branches which obstructed our progress had to be cut 
away, and when they began to fall, an dlar sawa réndam, or water 
python, some seven feet long and remarkably handsome with his 
blue and orange markings, dropped into the water, having been 
disturbed apparently in the middle of a comfortable snooze, though 
he had chosen an odd place for the purpose: it seemed a more 
suitable situation for offensive operations. He was badly cut by 
one or two of the men before he could get away, bearing too bad 
a character to be treated with any consideration. An ikan kélah, 
weighing about two kati, was secured by spear, that of the dex- 
terous Agor, a Jakun to whose skill we owed most of the game 
and fish procured on our way up the river. y 

As we could not reach the first resting place before dark, it was 
decided to put off our start till next morning. The banks of the 
river at this place, Chéndia Bémban, were covered with elephant 
tracks, and the bushes and ferns were crushed flat where they had 
been lying down. In the afternoon, one or two of the party who 
had been away to a little distance brought the news that there were 
elephants not far off, and the excitement which this caused was 
increased when it was observed, towards dusk, that the river had 
suddenly become muddy, a sign that some of the huge creatures 
were having a bath not very far up the stream; this kept the party 
on the alert, to be ready to do what they could to frighten away 
the herd should they come in our direction, as they have a way 
sometimes of advancing down-stream, and unless they could be 
diverted from their course, they would walk right through and over 
us, quite unconscious of such petty obstacles as canoes and bageage. 
The night, however, passed quietly without any disturbance. Du- 
ring the evening a very unpleasant low sound was heard, something 
between a growl and a chuckle, which some of the Malays thought 
came from an approaching elephant, while J thought of a tiger ; but 
the Jakuns knew better, it was a frog giving vent to his feelings 
in the bank; Acor went and secured him; he was a smooth-skinned 
variety, with very long legs and of large size, upper part dark 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. taiat 


greenish brown, paling at the sides, belly white; this was quite a 
young specimen, not full-grown. Agor said that a full-grown 
specimen would be very much larger. This certainly was nearly the 
biggest frog I had ever seen, so that the species is probably one of 
the largest in the Peninsula; it is called bdong diduk (+) in Malay, 
bébap being the Jakun term, which appears to be a generic one 
for frog. The noise this species makes is almost unearthly, and 
quite disagreeable ; there is one other sound I noticed in the jungle 
at night-time, which, though otherwise different, resembles it in 
this peculiar way; it is that made by the hautw séiambu, which is 
very weird, consisting of three or four long-drawn notes rising and 
falling but slightly, but the effect it is impossible to describe; the 
Jakuns say it is a weather guide. Further inquiry regarding the 
route to Chimundong only elicited the statement that if we followed 
the course of the Madek for seven or eight days we should reach it, 
or might do so in four days through the jungle, but that there was 
no regular path toit. Ihave already hinted reasons why the true 
facts were probably withheld from me, but want of time obliged 
me to forego the application of any test as to the truth of the state- 
ments made. 

A cousin of Cur Musa, named Méray, whom he had brought 
with him from the Lénggor, stated that a few months before, he 
had gone with a party of Jakuns from Kénalau (the chief Jakun 
settlement on the Sémbrong) to the source of the Kahang at the 
foot of Gtnong Bltimut, a six days’ journey (probably circuitous) 
through the jungle; and that half way they came upon the remains 
of an extensive building surrounded with brick walls, not very far 
from the river: there were also, he said, plenty of cultivated fruit 
trees about: he mentioned, I think, the dtrian and manggostin 
among others. The Jakuns called the place Délek, but could tell 
him nothing about the building. Now Loeay, in his account of the 
Kahang, mentions Danlek as being a place on that river whither 
the Jakuns habitually resorted to enjoy themselves in quiet during 
the dirian season: there can be no doubt that Dtlek and Danlek 
are one and the same, but Locan seems to have heard nothing 
about the ruins in the neighbourhood. In his paper “ Ethnological 
Excursions in the Malay Peninsula” (Journal Straits Branch of the 


(+) “ Baong,” usually a fish in Malay. 


12 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBU TARIES. 


Royal Asiatic Society, No. 2, p. 229, and footnote) MacLay mentions 
Tandiong (tanjong?) Genteng on the Kahang river as the old seat; 
according to Jakun tradition, of the Raja Bénta, and says that “it 
“was merely a large plain, clear of all trees close to the river.” He 
also suggests burning the /dlang (wild grass) and jungle with a view 
to a search for tools, arms and coins; but he was evidently told no- 
thing about ruins. Minan was much crossquestioned on the subject 
by myself as well as Cue Musa and Cur Ma’ Ati, but adhered 
strictly to his statement about the ruins. During the various vi- 
cissitudes of the Johor dynasty, the sovereigns, according to tradi- 
tion, sometimes took refuge in the interior of Johor, when they did 
not go as far as Pahang, and these ruins may be the remains of 
some such asylum. The Jakuns state that their line of Rajas, 7.e., 
Raja Bentia, is descended from the Malays in this way; that a queen 
of Johor, having been obliged by her enemies to flee into the in- 
terior, remained there and wedded a Jakun chief, their progeny 
assuming the title of Raja “ Béntiak,” as they themselves call 1t. 

It is not impossible that this tradition may be well-founded, 
a royal caprice would, under such circumstances, have little to res- 
train it, whether before or after Mahomedan days. 

The short time I spent inthe company of members of the Madek 
community, sufficiently accounts for the meagre information I was 
able to gather from them, especially as to their dialect, of which 
specimens could only be found few and far between, scattered 
throughout the general body of Malay, which is now their native 
tongue. Of the hundred words given in the Vocabulary prepared 
by the Society for the collectors of dialects, most have only Malay 
equivalents, pronounced with that broad and sometimes slightly 
nasal accent which characterises all the Jakuns I have met. I 
have inserted a few of them in the table, to illustrate the difference 
between their pronunciation and that of the ordinary Malay. 
Curiously enough the Society’s vocabulary omits the “tiger” from 
its list. 


Man Urang (Malay “ Orang.”) 
Woman “Bétinak,” and “Amei” (The latter the 


ordinary mode of addressing women of 
middle or more advanced age; -the 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 113 


literal meaning is “ aunt.’’) 

[N. B.—Most words ending with short 
‘‘a”’ are sounded as if ending with a 
partly sounded “k.” | 


Child Naa 1G yy (‘)[ Broad sound]. (These 
5 | are all Malay words, (*) 
Male child Awang (7) > “laki-laki” or “jantan ” in 
| Malay (3) “ péramptan” 

~ Female child Dayang(*)J or “bétina” in Malay.) 
Friend Siibeh [i=aw] (From “sohbat” a corrup- 


tion of Malay “ sahabat.’’) 


Hye-brow Lalis. 
Forehead Keéning (Malay for “eye-brow.”’) 
| ay et or ; Gigi rambut (Malay “teeth of hair.’’) 
Knee To’-ot (cf. Malay “lutut.” ) 
Heel Tumbit (Malay “ ttimit.’’) 
Ant Méret [Second syllable prolonged with a 
broad sound. Sémbrong dialect, ditto, | 
Dog Koyok (Common to all the Johor Jakuuns.) 
Elephant Péchem bésar. 
Mosquito Réngit [Second syllable prolonged broad. | 
Pig Jokot {Second syMable broad prolonged]. 


(This is the red-haired variety of the 
wild pig; the ordinary black kind is 
“Babi” as in Malay.) 


Frog Bébap. 
Lizard Dangkui (A black and orange variety.) 


Large water lizard Geriang (Larger than “ bidwak.’) 


114 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


Tortoise (small) ee ¥ 
angkeng. 
{ Nom 
Bégahak 
Fish (fresh-water) « Séngarat 
Timan 
\ Sébarau 


' (These are Malay.) 


Beast, (or dragon ?) Rémaf [“‘n” like final “ene” in French. ] 


To break the neck ) 4 
ofa hon j Kleng. 
To angle Mépas. (Perak Malay.) 


Bark (of a tree) Kélipak (“Kélipak or Kélopak bunga,” 
Malay, calyx and petals of a flower.) 


Grater Lagan. 
Cocoanut shell Diisar. (Malay, after use. Unused, “ tem- 
~ > Se) 
purong.” ) 
Firewood Ché-lehér. 


Fishing-basket i. gel. (Basket, Malay, of rattan or wood 
(with bait in to keep things or trapped ani- 
the mouth) i mals in.) 

) 


Fishing-basket 


(with thorns) Séntapok. (*Tapok.”) 


Blowpipe Témiang. (A variety of “buluh”™ or 
bambu.) 

Waist-cloth Bengkong, (Malay.) 

River Ayer (Malay.) 

Sea Baruh (Used in nearly the same sense by 


the Malays of Province Wellesley, im- 
plying rather the shore than the sea 
itself. Also used by Malays of the sea- 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTAREES. 115 


Valley 
Eclipse (sun) 


Eclipse (moon) 


Sign, sound 


Yesterday 


Yes 
No 


Never 
Dead (wife) 


Dead (child) 
Small 


Female 
Affectionate 
Angry 
Pleasant 


Divorced 


Will, pleasure 


board as against the interior, Also “a 
little below ” South as against North.) 


Charuk ( cf. Malay “ chéruk” corner.) 
Mata hari tangkak réman. 


Bulan tangkak réman (The sun or moon 
being caught by the beast. First two 
words Malay, “tangkak” being a cor- 
rupted form of “ tangkap.”) 


Pagam. 


Kémaghik (Corrupted from Malay ‘ Kél- 
oO 3 d 
marin.” 


Yak (Malay “ ya.”) 
Be. 


Béstah (Perhaps compound word, first 
syllable being originally ‘‘ bé.”’ ) 


Baluk. (Malay, to cry or wail several 


together.) 


Mantai [“ ai” broad. | 


Kécho, [v nasal twang to vowel.] (Malay 
= Keehul) 


Bétinak (Malay “ bétina” with “k” added.) 


Sérot. 


Silei (Rather like a Chinese attempt at 
“ Chérei.’’) 


Méjen, 


116 TIE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


Not get, unsuc- R 
cessful \ One. 


Raw, green (of ’ 
taste) ; Juhit. 


Don’t know Bddok (Malay “bédoh” unlearned, ig- 
norant ?) 


i Kébok. (Malay ?) 
Feeble x IBS, 
( Bé-Alah. 

Come Kiah. 

Go Jok. 

Drink Jo-dh (The same word as in pantang kd- 
pur with same meaning.) Journal §. 
B., R. A. S., No. 3, July, 1S7Siap. alee 

This Yak. 

That Hndoh. 


Grave (burial-place) Péendam. 


To tie acloth round the neck Beyirdt [Last syllable broad. | 
with intent to strangle (Form of lamentation at 
one’s self death of relation prac- 

tised by women. Malay 
‘“chérut ” to stranele 
one’s self with a cloth ?). 


A comparison of the Sémbrong and Madek lists of words, shews 
that, while a general agreement subsists between them, there are, 
notwithstanding, local differences, as follows :— 


Sembrong. Madek. | English. 
Mbei Bapa (Malay) Father 


Kain génding (Malay) Bengkong (Malay) Waist-cloth 


TUE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. Uys 


Sédek Sejok (Malay) Cold 
Keé-eng Sini (Malay) Here, hither 
Me-¢ct Juhut Raw, green (in taste) 


Further investigation would, no doubt, bring this out more clearly. 

A reference to Mactay’s “ Dialects of the Orang Hitan of Johor” 
and “of the Mixed Tribes of the Orang Hutan of the Interior ”’ 
(Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 1, 
July, 1878, pp. 41, 42, and 44) shews only two words common to 
his and my lists—“ Mbai,” father, in the Stmbrong dialect, and 
“ Amei,” woman, in the MAdek dialect. I went through Macnay’s 
lists with both the tribes, but these were the only words they re- 
cognised ; of the others they professed complete ignorance. In his 
paper (already referred to, p. 40) Macuay says: “I found it im- 
“possible to ascertain sufficiently the number and limitation of the 
“different dialects. That more have existed is probable. I have 
“arranged, somewhat arbitrarily, the following words into two 
“dialects. JI have only noted down (as said before) those words 
“which appeared to me not Malay.” And in a note to the foregoing 
paragraph he further says: “ As the Orang Hiittan are nomads, it 
“appears to me quite immaterial to specify the place in which I 
“have taken down the words.” 

It is certainly to be regretted that M. Macuay did not give what- 
ever information he had gained regarding the number and limita- 
tion of the dialects, however incomplete. The plan of “ arbitrary 
arrangement” leaves us quite in the dark as to whether the dialects 
given come from North, South, or Central Johor. It is true that 
the “Orang Huttan” are nomads, but only within their own dis- 
tricts, the intrusion into which, for any purpose other than mere 
thoroughfare, by members of another tribe, is greatly resented, 
and sometimes leads to quarrels, which are so rare amongst these 
people. The insertion of the place where the words were taken 
down would have shewn to which tribe the people belonged. 

There still appear to be several words in M. Macuay’s list which 
are—some certainly, others possibly—of Malay origin ; of the first 
class are the following :— 


Mouth Bibir (Malay fox “lips,” part for the whole.) 


118 THE BNDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


Leg Betit, litat ( beétis”’ and “ lutut ” Malay for calf of 
leg and knee, respectively.) 

Two Dua 

Moon Bulatnah (corrupt form of Malay “ bulan.’) 


Under the second I would place :— 


Sun Matbri, tonkat (Malay “ tongkat.’”’) 
Head Btbon (Malay “ibon-tbon.”) 
Hyes Med, mot, padingo (Malay ee mata,” 23 ptnengok ” 


from “ tengok,” to see.) 


Stomach Lopot (Malay “ prut,” by metathesis ?) 
in “matbri” we have “mat ”=“‘ mata” eye, “bri” either the word 
in the list for “forest” or a corrupt form of “ hari.” 

Whether “tonkat,” or “tongkat”? which means “ walking stick” 
in Malay, is more than a mere coincidence is a matter for conjec- 
iLee. 

“Butbon” is, in all probability, a contraction from the Malay, 
“iibon-iibon,” the crown of the head: “tiban”’ is grey hairs. 

“Med” and “mot” are probably different forms of “ mata,” the 
eye; while “padingo” suggests the idea that it derives from the 
Malay “tengok,”’ being a corrupt form of the verbal substantive 
“ptnengok’? which is the equivalent for “eye” in pantang kdpur. 

‘Tf Mactay was careful to distinguish, when collecting words, 
between the old dialect and the pantang kdpur, the occurrence 
in a list, purporting to belong to the former, of words formed from 
Malayan epithets, is a strong argument in favour of the latter being 
a relic of it. | 

The Midek tribe, with the exception of that portion which re- 
moved recently to Sungei Mas on the Upper Endau, seems to be con- 
fined to the watershed of the Kahang and Madek with their tribu- 
taries. Their numbers are now very lhmited, comprising no more 
than thirty souls. They are not uniform in type, even their hmited 
community presenting several varieties, which is accounted for by 
the intermarriage with Malays; the Chinese have, I believe, had 
little, if any, intercourse with this tribe. 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 119 


One chief characteristic which distinguishes the Madek tribe 
from Jakuns of other tribes, is the absence of any rite resembling 
circumcision; while the Scmbrong tribe make an incision, but do 
not circumcise. The Madek people, however, relate that they used 
to observe the custom, but that it was given up owing to unto- 
ward circumstances, which took -place two or three hundred 
years ago as follows. On one occasion when the rite was observed, 
several of the tribe died of the effects; it was ascertained that the 
knives used for the purpose had been accidentally placed in a ves- 
sel containing ‘poh,-the poison with which their blowpipe arrows 
are habitually tipped: from that time the observance of the rite 
was discontinued. 

On the death of a man, tobacco and betel-leaf are placed on his 
chest, and the relations weep and wail, at the same time knock- 
ing their heads against the wall; while the women tie a cloth 
round their necks to strangle themselves (b7//rét), but the men in- 
terfere before any harm is done nowadays, though, in former times, 
the women are said to have actually strangled themselves on such 
oceasions. The burial usually takes place next day, sometimes 
on the second day, if there be any reason for delay. All the pro- 
perty of the deceased, comprising his weapons, a cup and plate, and 
clothing, are buried with him, together with some rice. The depth 
of the grave is up to the breasts. An axe, torch in stand, cocoanut 
shell gourd, and pan are placed on the top of the grave. 

Poyang bisar is a poyang who reaches heaven by disappearing 
without death, or who on sickening to death requests kématan 
to be burnt over him for two days after his (apparent) death, 
instead of being wept over and buried, when he comes to life 
again. 

The tribe used io live up the Kahang, but Cue Ma’ Aur (the head 
of the Kwila Stmbrone Station) insisted on their removing, for 
his convenience, to Kwila Madek. 

The kdyu kelondang, or gélondang, as it is also called, which 
is struck by the attendants of the pdéyang when the latter is 
exercising his skill on behalf of a sick man, must, among the Madek 
people, be of méréwan wood and no other. While his attendants 
strike the kéyu Aelondang, the pdyang waves a spray of the chdwak 
tree, at the same time making his incantations. 


120 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES, 


If a man dics in debt, his debts are paid to the extent of one half, 
the creditor losing the other half, even though there be property 
enough left to pay the whole; the balance goes to the next of kin, 
to the widow, if there be one, in preference to a grown-up son, 
but aman can leave his property to any relation he pleases. 

A curious superstition prevails among the Madek people, which, 
so long as children are unable to walk, prevents their parents from 
using as food certain fish and animals; as soon as the littlé ones 
have acquired the use of their legs this restriction 1s removed, and 
the parents are once more able to indulge in what has so long 
been pantang or “forbidden.” Should this superstition not be 
complied with, and any parent eat of any of the forbidden creatures 
during the period of restriction, the children are supposed to be lia- 
ble to an illness called bisong,(*) arising, according to the Malays, 
from prt kumbong or swollen stomach. Protuberant bellies 
seem to be the striking feature of most native children of whatever 
race in these countries. ‘The following is the lst of fish and 
animals which are pantang under the above circumstances :— 
Fish—nom, bégdhak, séngdrut, timan, and scbdrau; eggs, and fowls; 
beasts—the deer (both rf#sa and kijang) the pelandok Gneluding 
the ndpoh), the jékét, and babi, the bidwak (water lizard), geriang 
(large water lizard), the kira-kira (land-tortoise), bduing (variety 
of the preceding, but larger, and shell flatter), bidku (ke peniu 
tuntong, a freshwater turtle, but long-necked, perches on dead wood 
in the rivers), jahik, (a small tortoise.) 

The Jakuns of Johor though, as has been noticed, no longer pos- 
sessing a distinct language of their own, and but few members of a 
pure Jakun type, none the less consider themselves to be, and are 
still held to be, a race apart and distinct. The Malays, of course, 
look down upon them, and shew it by their treatment of them. I 
am desirous of drawing public attention to this treatment of a sim- 
ple, laborious, and inoffensive people in the hope of thereby secur- 
ing an amelioration of their condition. 

Some few years back, the Jukuns on the Endau, that is to say, the 
Endau, Stmbrong, and their tributaries, were in comparatively 
comfortable circumstances, procuring the produce of the jungle for 
traders, and receiving the ordinary returns in kind, or planting 


(1) A foaming yellow stool. 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. | PAL) 


tapioca, klédek, sugar-cane, and plantains; they finding Johor rule 
comparatively quiet, rather took to the Johor side of the Endau, to 
the annoyance of the Pahang authorities. These latter in their 
jealousy issued an attractive but deceitful proclamation intended to 
draw back the runaway Jakun into Pahang territory on pretence of 
celebrating some ancestral feast, but in reality with the intention 
of enslaving them: the Jukuns were induced to go into Pahang, but 
vot wind of what was likely to happen in time for some of them to 
get away. On another occasion, some Pahang Jakuns crossed over 
into Johor territory; Cur Nexu Da, of Pianggu, who is the local 
chief on the Pahang side, ordered them to return, and shot one of 
them who did so; nor are the foregoing solitary instances of the 
inhuman treatment suftered by these tribes, as by similar tribes in 
the North of the Peninsula, at the hands of the Malays; but it is 
necdless to multiply instances, the fact that it is systematic is al- 
ready sufficiently well-known and authenticated, though it has been 
hitherto allowed (except in Pérak) to remain an unnoticed fact. 
What is required is that steps should be taken to make the 
ruling powers in Malay States aware that we can no longer view 
with indifference any toleration by them of misconduct by any of 
their subjects towards the aborigines residing in their territories, 
and that we shall expect severe measures to be adopted against 
any offending in this way. 

The Malays of Johor, though they have not imitated the brutal con- 
duet of the Pahangites, have nevertheless taken advantage, though 
not perhaps more than is natural, of their superior position in their 
dealings with the Jakuns. They do not give them the fair market 
value in kind for the jungle produce they receive from them, and 
are not content with an exchange which brings them less than 100 
to 200 per cent. profit; by this means they keep the Jakun con- 
stantly in their debt; he has learnt wants now which he has to 
work so hard to satisfy that he has little or no time left for the 
cultivation which would formerly have kept him in comfort: still 
more is this the case, where they are forced to work for a local 
Malay official, not at the ordinary rates of exchange in kind, but 
merely for sufficient rice to keep body and soul together, while they 
toil to satisfy his grasping greed. Treatment such as this elicits 
comment even from the apathetic Malay, especially when he is a 
fellow-sufferer, perhaps a constable on a station drawing a monthly 


1 THE HNDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


salary, which he seldom, if ever, enjoys the sight of, though it is, no 
doubt, transmitted regularly from Singapore. But this is merely 
by the way, an illustration of personal characteristics waien do not 
end with the Jakuns. 

Now the Jakuns cannot get on without rice, of which the Malays 
have taught them the value, but which was not originally in their 
list of articles of food; they have gone so far as to cultivate it for 
the last 30 years wnen allowed the needful leisure. During our 
ascent of the Stmbrong, we met a dilapidated Jakun in a more 
dilapidated canoe, who told us he had had no rice for three days 
with the air of one starved, and so the poor creature looked. We 
gave him temporary supplies. 

On the 8th September we left our Batu Bahara friend in posses- 
sion of the jalor at Chéndia Bémban, and six hours’ walking brought 
us to Ayér Jamban, our resting place for the night. Our course for 
the first hour or so was in a South-East direction, it then turned 
South, and later South-South-West. The country was undulating, 
rising nowhere above 150 feet, though the gradients were some- 
times pretty steep; the low grounds were mostly swamps, occa- 
sionally made more cheerful by a small stream, but more often 
remarkable for their plentiful supply of thorny rattans. The nar- 
row pass of Bukit Pétodak was the stony bed of a stream, strewn 
with quartz, sandstone, and a little iron ore. Almost the whole 
way the path was fairly wide and clear, being a “ dénei” or wild 
beast path 


; it was marked throughout by elephant tracks, and 


a 


oceasionaily we came upon another diverging track, shewing the 


ken boughs and fresh 


recent passage of elephants by its newly bro 
fallen leaves scattered about. The vegetation was luxuriant, ferns, 
lycopodiums and various plants with handsome leaves in many 
places completely covering the ground; | noticed a standard varie- 
y of lycopodium rising as high as the waist. The Aytr Jamban 
is a tributary of the Sédih, and is: large and deep enough to be use- 
ful were it cleared of obstructions. From a hill not far off, the 
Jakuns procured a good supply of ddun pdyonrg (cr umbrella 
leaves) to roof their huts with for the night, but I noticed that, 
like those in the kampong at Kwala Madek, they were much smaller 
than the variety growing on Ginong Méntahak, and go, I gathered, 
were all the ddun pdyong in this part of the country. Six hours’ 


at 


THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 123 


more walking next day (9th) brought us to Pengkalan Teba, 
(the Jakun kampong at the head of the Lénggiu river) which 
we found almost deserted, the bulk of the able-bodied of the kam- 
pong having been transported to Kota Tinggi, to make a road thence 
to Gtnong Panti for the convenience of coffee planters who were 
intending to try their luck there, after favourable reports by ex- 
plorers from Ceylon. Having, so far, no boat at our disposal, we 
were compelled to wait at Péngkalan Tébé till one could be pro- 
cured from Tunku, a new settlement of rattan-collectors a little 
way down the Lénggiu, so I spent the next day (10th) in the as- 
eent of Bukit Pupur (1,350 feet), the high hill behind the house of 
the Batin. The way at first lies on the path to the Madek, but soon 
leaves that on the left, and shortly becomes less smooth; at the 
last, just short of the summit, is a perpendicular wall of rock, 
which has to be climbed by the help of roots and tree stems; on 
these rocks grow small plants with beautifully marked and tinted 
leaves; the ferns were conspicuous by their absence. The rocks 
on this hill were a blue granite, said by Mr. Hiun to resemble that 
found in Ceylon, and a rather soft sandy-brown sandstone, with 
red streaks, disposed to come away in lamina. Near the summit 
both tiger and rhinoceros tracks were observed. The top was 
covered with too dense a growth of trees to allow of any clear 
view, but I was able to get a glimpse in a South direction of what 
were no doubt the two peaks of Ginong Pilei. Cre Musa climbed a 
high tree on the western edge, and saw several hills North of West, 
which I took to be the ridges of Ptninjau and Pésélangan, but he 
then went on to describe clearings as existing near the foot of 
these; all, however, knowing that there was no cultivation going on 
in that part of the country by Europeans, Malays, or natives of any 
race, it was unanimously agreed that this must be the work of the 
Grang binyian. It occurred to me, that perhaps these might be 
the beginning of Mr. Warson’s clearings on the slopes of Ginong 
Banang near the mouth of the Batu Pahat. 

The jalor having been prepared, we started down the river next 
morning (the 11th) and reached Singapore on the evening of the 
14th, soon after dark, having changed boat twice on the way, once 
at Séluang, and again at Kota Tinggi, where Cur Hussy, the officer 

in charge of Séltiang (being here to supervise the arrangements for 


124 THE ENDAU AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 


the reception of the Maharaja) kindly handed me over his gébeng 
to take me to Singapore. The rockiness of the river-banks between 
Péngkalan Téba and Séliang was quite a feature in the scenery on 
this trip down the stream. On my previous trip (returning from 
Blimut) they were all concealed by the floods. On the banks of the 
Lénggiu I found growing in one place a quantity of dwarf bambu 
and a very graceful fern [Polypodium (dipteris) bifurcatum ?]. 
Batu Hampar was quite bare this time, and was surrounded with 
sticks bearing bits of white cloth, placed by those who had paid 
their vows there. J stopped a short time at Panti to talk with 
the Batin Tuha (of Péngkilan Teéba Jakiuns), who was lodging 
there, but could get nothing out of him; the presence of so many 
strange Malays seemed to tie up his tongue, but he was pleased to 
see me again. | 

The new godown at Kota Tinggi commands a very good view of 
Ginong Panti, the site is an eminence above the river, the centre, 
no doubt, of the old kota; round its base is a creek which used to 
be the pdrit or moat, the southern end of which joins the main 
river, while the other probably communicates with Sungei Peman- 
dian. At Panchur, where I also touched on my way down the 
river, the high bank, which affords such a pretty view of the river 
and more distant scenery, 1s the site of an old fort, traces of where 
the guns were placed are still visible, but part of the site is now 
used as a burial ground. Very fine specimens of iron ore are occa- 
sionally washed out from under the banks at the landing place. 


ITINERARY FROM SINGAPORE 


~ TO THE SOURCE 


OF THE SEMBRONG AND UP THE MADEK. 


= 


Oi C4 FTER leaving Singapore, the first point we passed was 
aba 

S Di | Tanjong Raménia (1) (commonly known as Romania 
GR 


} en Point) or Pénytisok, which we reached in five and-a-half 
co #%\ hours; shortly after, we passed Pilau Lima, not far from 
kp which could be seen the wreck of the ‘ Kingston,” 

“ Here,” said the men, “ many vessels are wrecked.” 

At Sungei Punggei (?) we were detained by a strong squall. 
Two hours up this river is a Chinese gambier plantation. Before 
reaching Tanjong Lémau, the next noticeable promontory, the 
striking peak of PtJau Tinggi comes into view, bearing about 70° 
from Tanjong Ténggaroh, the next headland. Two hours further 
on is the mouth of Sungei Mérésing (5), and just beyond it lies 
Tanjong Sttindan.(*) From here Pilau Tidman (*) can be well seen, 
and at daybreak J had a beautiful view of it, with its wonderfully 
fantastic peaks raising high their sombre-tinted heads above the 
fleecy veil which concealed its base. It is strange that so little is 
known of this grand island, which, unlike most of the neighbouring 


(1). ‘‘Raménia” or more commonly ‘“ Rumunia” is a fruit used 
as a pickle by the Malays, either in the achar or the jéruk form, 


“Sisok” to clear jungle the first time, or perhaps from “ sisor 
ményusor” to skirt the shore in a boat. 


(7). “Punggei,” a tree, the wood of which is used in boat and 
house- building, “and the bark for flooring. 


©): “een smelling offensively. 
(+) “Sétindan,” a row, a series. 


(*). Tidman was given to Daek or Lingga, so it is said, by the 
Raja of Pahang, who married the former's dau hter, as winds 
kdwin, and the name is fancifully derived from “ timbangan,’ 


126 ITINERARY. 


formations, consists chiefly of trap rock. It is well worth a visit, 

both from the artist’s and the naturalist’s point of view. A full 

account of it is still a desideratum, M. THomson’s visit in 184— 

having been but a hasty one. 

The fine succession of rocky points, which bear the name of Tan- 
jong Sétindan, are a striking feature in the scenery of the coast 
line, which is characteristically terminated by the bold rock known 
as Batu Gajah (Hlephant Rock). In the centre of the bay which 
succeeds Tanjong Scétindan is a remarkable row of wooded clifis, 
which stand out like ramparts beyond the line of the bay. A few 
miles further on, the sea is studded with various islets, which le off 
the mouth of the Endau. The chief of these, as a watering-place, 
is Pilau Acheh, a little gem of an island, rising abruptly some 150 
to 200 feet from the sea, with its spring of clear water, its luxu- 
riant vegetation, and peculiar-looking rocks, some orange, and some 
chocolate-tinted, others of a whitish shale, traversed here by bands 
of yellowish-grey quartz, there by bands of iron oxide, the junction 
of the two being signalised by the appearance of glittering erys- 
tals. The islands to the left, on proceeding to the Hndaun, were : 
Pilau Keban, Ptlau Taidong Keban (+), Ptilau Ujul (@), Palau 
Pényibong (*), Palau Lalang (*), and Piilan Keémpit (*) ; to the 
right was Pilau Layak (°). 

Oe ee 
(1), “K&ban,” work basket. “Ttdong Kéban,” work-basket lid. 
(2). Said to be like a fruit of that name in shape. 

(3). Cock-fighters’ island, “Sabong,” “Menyabong,” to cock- 
fight. The pirates used to come and cock-fight here. Onshore, near 
this island, is Prigi China, a well made by Chinese wangkang crews 
on their way to Singapore. 

+), “TV Alang,” the wild grass which overruns all clearings left to 
themselves. This island, says the old legend, issued originally from 
the river Tériang Bésar hard by, in the form of a huge crocodile, and 
was turned into an island when it reached its present position. 


(°). This island is a krémat, a sacred spot where vows are 
registered and prayers offered up. Tradition relates that Kémpit 
and his six brothers, while anchored off Pirgang were drawn out to 
sea by rough weather, and their boat was capsized ; they all perish- 
ed, and on the spot where the fatal accident happened arose the 
island of Kémpit. 

(°), Layak, a fibrous climbing plant, the trailers of which are 
used for string. 


y) 


ITINERARY. 127 


The following list gives the names of all the places up the Hndau 
River. The abbreviations are :— 
S. for Sungei ; Tg. for Tanjong; P. for Pilau ; T. for Téluk ; 
G. for Ginong; Bt. for Bukit; K. for Kampong; B. for Batu; 
Kw. for Kwala; Pn. for Péngkalan ; L. for Litbok. 


Right bank :— 

Three-quarters of a mile up Padang (Police Station here): S. 
Guantan Kechil, 8. Guantan Bésar, S. Nior (source behind Padang 
Station), S. Bésut (+), S. Sémaloi, 8. Neane (one hour’s ascent), 
K. and Bt. Briang, T. Godang, T. Apit, B. and S. Labong (latter 
one day’s ascent), Te. Kézlih, Disun Tinggi, T. Nibong Patah, 
T. Jéjawi (here begins Rantau Panjang, and a fine long reach it is), 
T. Dangkil, Rantau Ranggam (2), S. Pélajar (*) (half-an-hour’s 
ascent), S. Barau (*) (half-an-hour’s ascent), S. and T. Palas (*). 
T. B. Pitih, 8. Térsap (°) (two days’ ascent, source at Tanah 
Abang), Bt. Jirak, S. Jirak (half-an-hour’s ascent), T. Bérang (’), 
S. Pelawan (°) (half-an-hour to Tanah Abang), 8. Pasir (a small 
creek leading to Tanah Abang; tin used to be worked here), S. 
Bong Lei (°) (to Tanah Abang, and to other old tin-workings). 


Left bank :— 
Te. Gemuk, Te. Malang Gading, 8. Anak Hndau (three days’ 


ca) 
Cees besut, to strike. 
2). “Rangeam,” a shrub with a short stem, like the “ Salak,” 
and leaves resembling those of the cocoa-palm, hard brown fruit, 
eaten both ripe and unripe with salt. 

(?). “ Pélajar,” a tree, giving from the stem an oil which is 
used for s#kit losong, a disease causing white spots. 

() Garau-barau,’ is perhaps the finest singing-bird in the 
Peninsula. “Stbarau” is a fish. Baru, a shrub on sea-shore from 
which rope is made, it has a yellow flower. 

(?). “Palas,” that curious plant, the leaves of which are used 
by Malays for the covering of their roko, and do not terminate 
either in a curve or a point, but look as though their ends had been 
chopped off, leaving a straight saw-like edge. 

(°). “Résap” =“ lésap,” to disappear, used of losing the path, or of 
anything disappeared from its place. 

(7). “Bérang,” a tree bearing a fruit which is eaten when fried. 

(§). “Pélawan,” a very hard wood, used for making oars and 
paddles. 

(°). “Bong Lei,’ a variety of ginger. 


CN 


128 ITINERARY. 


ascent, source at Bt. Kéndok, (+) a fine hill visible from the mouth 
of Endau just North of G. Janing (*), which latter bears 
about 5° N. of 8. W., from the mouth of Endan), twenty minutes 
further on formerly K. Tambang, 8. Lantang (*), a quarter of-an- 
hour higher K. Pianggu (*) (residence of Cuz Eyexu Da, nephew 
of the Béndahara of Pahang), Olak (*) Gol (*) a broad bend, 
one and-a-quarter hours higher T. Rédang (7), S. Késik (8), 
S. Johor (one hour’s ascent), S. Kéméntas (three hours’ ascent), 
Tunjang Pélandok (°), T. Tungku Bélinggang, 8. Nangka (half-an- 
hour’s ascent), S. Kambar (two days’ ascent, source at Bt. Kéndok), 
Guntong (1°), $8. Buaya (one hour’s ascent, course parallel with 
Endau), S. Méntélong (two days’ ascent, source in a swamp behind 
Bt. Kéndok), T. Kapar (?1) (from T. Dangkil, right bank, to this 
one great bend: this was the execution place in the time of the 
grandfather of the present Bendahara), T. Larak (17), Rantau Bi- 


(1). “ Kéndok” a grass. 

(7). In wet seasons, an anchor with a rope is said to appear to 
prevent this mountain being carried away. 

(*). “Lantang,” clear, open, nothing in sight. 

(*). “Piangeu,” a tree bearing an edible but very astringent 
fruit, which, with the shoots, is used with salt and chili as a sambal. 

(*), “Olak,” ripple, or agitation. 

(°). “Gol,” sound of head-knocking, fish-biting. 

7), A tree with wide leaves and fine branches. “ Rédan” a 
tree with edible fruits hke rambutan, but without the bristles ; 
wood useful. 

(8), “ Késik-késik,” used of whispering or any small noise. 

(°). “Tunjang,’ hoof marks, but it means literally anything 
raised above the surface; this is the place whence a péiandok 
started in flight on being chased, and is celebrated in pantuns, for 
instance :— . 

Grd Bo? Gp Gh al Gis Bil AS 
ple damp fay C8 aad i JSan Ai Sg 

(@°), A creek. 

(23), “Kapar,” or “Képar” as it is elsewhere called, is a 
curious-looking stumpy palm, not rising above twenty-five feet 
in height; it is not very common. ‘“ Kapar’ also means scattered 
about, perhaps referring to snags in the stream. 

(2). “Larak” an “akar,” or monkey-rope, giving forth on 
being tapped a rather green-flavoured water. “‘ Larak” also means 
close together, as the seeds of a dirian, without much pulp. 


ITINERARY. 129 


nyian (1), Risau Bfisu, Tg. Tian (a krdmat), Olak Béndahira 
(in ten minutes right Kw. Stmbrong Station), S. Endau Mati 
(which ends in the résaz near the Station ; this was the old course 
of the Endau confluent before it cut its way through the tanjong 
and took its present course). Reach Station twenty minutes after 
sighting it. 

20th August.—(For Hilu Sémbrong)—We passed on the right 
bank the following places :— 

pelieaeoor (7), Pn. Lanjut (*), 8. Nior (*), Pn. Kijang (°). 

Left bank :— 

S. Lénga (one day’s ascent, four or five Jakun houses,) Pn. 
Wenei (*), Wu. Talam (7). 

The 21st we passed the following places :— 


Right bank :— 

P. Bukit, Kelling Sélat (extensions of the stream enclosing is- 
lands; the meaning is, if you go round it is but a strait), P. Mati 
Anak (a small lump sticking up in the stream, said to be 
floating whatever the state of the river, so named from the death 
of a Malay child at its birth), 8. Tébang Kasing (*) (one and-a-half 


1). 7e., “Rantau Orang Biinyian,” or the reach of the invisi- 
ble folk. This is a race of beings held to live like the rest of the 
world, but apart from and invisible to them ; though they are to be 
seen occasionally, but only to disappear if sought for. They are said 
to possess this power from invariably speaking the truth ; they only 
live in the jungie. 

(7). There are some Jakuns up this river, whence there is a 
pathway to the Sédili Bésar, and, I believe, to the Madek. 

8). “Tanjut” is a tree, the fruit of which is in much favour 
with Malays. 

(*). “Nior,” cocoa-nut tree, a sign of former occupation. 

(*). “ Kijang,”’ a deer about the size of a goat. 

(°). This word “dénei” is used for a mountain pass or gully, 
but also, and particularly in this part of the country, seems to be 
used of the well-worn tracks of the wild beasts of the jungle, which 
usually lead to water, and are freely used by the collectors of jungle 
produce. 

(7). “Tray hole,” where some one lost his tray in the water, 
or from its shape. 

(*). A tree, useful to the carpenter, 


180 ITINERARY. 


days’ ascent), L. Mak Sénei, Pn. Peélépah (+) (sago-palm leaves 
procured here), L. Slam Bédil or Mériam (here, it is said, was sunk 
a piece of cannon in the time of Kiris, Raja of Pahang), L. Pényti 
(turtle-hole), T. Pélépah (7) (a broad deep bay, conjecturally 300 
yards by 100, narrowing at the finish), S. Kahang (?) (the Madek 
is a tributary of this river). 

Left bank :— 

S. Sélondok, 8. Atap Layar, L. Pongkor, 8S. Barang, P. Gagak 
(crow landing-place), 8S. Harus Dras (swift current river). 

22nd.) heli banka: 

The trésan (channel junction with main stream) of S. Harus 
Dras, Jébul Kédah, Paloh (?) Méengkwang, other end of Jébul 
Kédah, Chédang Dta (Jakun for Chabang dia, or the bifurcation 
where S. Harus Dras leaves the Stmbrong [2nd S. Harus Dras ?]). 
Pasir Kijang, S. Kémbar, 8. Bétok (*) (used to be a hampong of 
20 Jaukuns here 10 years ago), S. Banteian (°). 

Right. bank :— 

S. Béhei, P. Bitku (a variety of tortoise), Danau Miang (the itch- 
giving lake: whether this referred to the water, mud, or some 
weed, I did not learn), L. Dinding Papan (this would naturally 
mean the plank-walled hole, and may be supposed to refer to an 
artificially constructed bathing-place for a Iaja in former days), 
S. Kémbar (flows into Sembrong just opposite river of same name 
on the other bank, hence the name, the “twin streams”’). 


Pari,  lbeits login < = 

S. Séngkar (7) (ap which we proceed, as being easier to get 
through than the Sémbrong), 8. Sthlei (back into the Sémbrong 
in about 50 minutes from start); large clearing, formerly Jakun 
padi-land), 8. Tamok, B. Jakas (a variety of mengkwang), then 


(1) “ Pélépah,” this word signifies the branch-leaf of trees of the 
palm-kind, plantain and cocoa-nut trees, &c. 

(2) Strong-smelling, next to “ Mérésing.” 

(*?) A hollow in the bed of the sea, or a hollow on land filled 
with water. 

(+) A fish. 

(*) “ Bantei,” to strike; “ banting,”’ to take up and dash down. 

(©) A cross bar connecting the ends of the gdding in a boat. 


ITINERARY. HAUL 


-rdsaw islets, Paloh Kochek (:) (Jakun settlement), S. Ménekélah 
(a fish), L. Lésong (mortar hole), 8. and Pn. Pondok (“ pondok,” 
hut) (a Jakun settlement). 

Right bank :— 

‘An hour after coming back into the Sémbrong, bL. Pasar, 
PAloh Tampui (“tampui,”’ an edible fruit like the manggostin in 
construction, but light-brown in colour); three Jakun huts shortly 
after; an hour later, Kumbang (a Jakun settlement), Pn. Po- 
mang (7). 

24th. Right bank :--- ; 

i, Chaong (*), S. Pésdlot (+), S. Ayér Rawa (*). 

Left bank :— 

P. Déndang (*), Londang (7), Pn. Keénalau (the chief Jakun 
settlement on the Stmbrong). 

25th. Left bank :— 

S. Beétong (*), S. Meélctir(®) (this is really the Stmbrong, the 
stream we ascend now being S. Kélambu), Pn. Tongkes (1°). 

2nd September. (From Kwala Kahang). 

Right bank :-— 

S. Songsang Lanjut, Parit Siam (the Siamese moat), K. Tébang 
Said (the kampong cleared by the Said), Kubbtr Dato’ Said (+?) 
(the tomb of Dato’ Said), Kw. Madek. 

Ath. (Ascending Kahang.) 

Right bank :— 

Trisan or channel from Kahang leading into Madek, which we 

~ (@) “ Kochek,” pocket. 

(2) “ Pomang,”’ a wood used for general purposes. 

(*) “Chaong,” a useful wood. 

(*) “ Pésdlot,” a creek, shorter than guntong. 

(*) “ Rawa,” a tree producing edible fruit and a fine wood. 


(°) “ Déndang,’ a crow. Tradition relates that a Bugis vessel 
thus named was here changed into an island. 


(7) “Londang,” a larger “Paloh.”—12 years ago this was a 
thriving settlement, but is now deserted. 


(®) A variety of bambu. 

(°) A tree used for firewood. 

(*°) A tree used for firewood. 

(11) He is said to have been a Siamese turned Mahomedan. 


132 ITINERARY. 


enter, leaving Kahang on right, and, after entering Madek in 20 
minutes, pass the following places :— 

Tampui Mambong (a creek) (@.e. the empty tampui fruit), Pn. 
Dirian, 8S. Kichang, 8. Kladi Mérah (bank bright red olay here), 
Padang Jérkeh. 

Left bank :— 

S. Jérang Blanga, S. Kématir (one day’s ascent). The half- 
hour’s course up to this point is one long reach called Rantau 
Keématir. 

oth. Right bank :— 

S. Chérlang, S. Sol Nyungsan, B. Kuau, (argus-pheasant hill), 
S. Lésong (here begins Rantau To’ Oh), S. and B. Sérdang (a fine 
palm with grand leaves forming capital temporary thatch.) 

Left bank :— 

Paloh Raneh, Pn. To’ Oh, S. Junting, S. Réndam Séligi. 

6th. Right bank :— 

L. Képong (the hole surrounded or fenced in), S. Blat (“ blat,” 
a weir), 8. Lémémet. 

7th. Left bank :— 

S. Médang,(?) Danau Chéruk (the lake in the corner), Chendia 
Bémban (in pantang kdpur “chéndia” means house, hut; “bém- 
ban” is a tree with hollow stem containing pith; a lotion for the 
eyes is made from its buds). 

Right bank :— 

Gantong lambei (hanging signal, “lambei,” to beckon), Pn. 

Bémban (opposite Chéndia Bemban). 


(+) ‘‘ Médang,” a tree, of which there are several varieties used 
in carpentering. 


le, ae ld 


MeteRA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


BY 


(fan Hey, i PEREAM. 


system, and applied to various mythological person- 
ages; but whatever be its meaning and application in 
Malay, in Sea Dyak—a language akin to Malay—it is 
the one word to denote Deity. Petara is God, and corresponds 
in idea to the Hlohim of the Old Testament. 

But to elucidate the use of the term, we cannot turn to dictionary 
and treatises. There is no literature to which we can appeal. The 
Sea Dyaks never had their language committed to writing before 


the Missionaries began to work amongst them. For our know- 
ledge of their belief, we have to depend upon what individuals tell 
us, and upon what we can gather from various kinds of pengap— 
long songs or recitations made at certain semi-sacred services, 
which are invocations to supernatural powers. ‘These are handed 
down from generation to generation by word of mouth; but only 
those who are curious and diligent enough, and have sufficiently 
capacious memories, are able to learn and repeat them; and, as 
may be expected, in course of transmission from age to age, they 
undergo alteration, but mostly, I believe, in the way of addition. 
This tendency to change is evident from the fact that, in different 
tribes or clans, different renderings of the pengap, and different . 
accounts of individual belief may be found. What follows in this 
Paper is gathered from the Balau and Saribus tribes of Dyaks. 

A very common statement of Dyaks, and one which may easily 
mislead those who have only a superficial acquaintance with them 
and their thought, is that Petara is equivalent to dllak Taala, or 


134 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


Tuhan Allah. “What the Malays call Allah Taala, we call 
“ Petara” is a very common saying. And it is true in so far as 
both mean Deity; but when we investigate the character repre- 
sented under these two terms, an immense difference will be found 
between them, as will appear in the sequel. What Allah Taala is, 
we know; what Petara is, I attempt to show. 

I have not unfrequently been told by Dyaks that there is only 
one Petara, but I believe the assertion was always made upon 
very little thought. The word itself does not help us to determine 
either. for monotheism or for polytheism, because there are no 
distinct forms for singular and plural in Sea Dyak. To us the 
word looks like a singular noun, and this appearance may have 
suggested to some that Dyaks believe in a hierarchy of subordi- 
nate supernatural beings with one God—Petara—above all. I 
have been told, indeed, that, among the ancients, Petara was repre- 
sented as :— 

Patu, nada apar 


Eudang nadat indar. 


An orphan, without father, 
Ever without mother. 


which would seem to imply an eternal unchangeable being, with- 
out beginning, without end. And this idea is perhaps slightly 
favoured by a passage in a pengap. In the song of the Head 
Feast, (7) the general object of the recitation is to “fetch,” that is, 
invoke the presence of, Singalang Burong at the feast, and certain 
messengers are lauded, who carry the invitation from the earth to 
his abode in the skies. Now these are represented as passing on 
their way the house of Petara, who is described as an individual 
being, and who is requested to come to the feast. There may be 
here the relic of a belief in one God above all, and distinct from 
all; but this belief, notwithstanding what an individual Dyak may 
occasionally say, must be pronounced to be now no longer really 
entertained. 

The general belief is that there are many Petaras; in fact, as 
many Petaras as men. Each man, they say, has his own peculiar 
Petara, his own tutelary Deity. “One man has one Petara, 


(*) Straits Asiatic Journal, No, 2, p. 123. 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 135 


“another man another’—Jai orang jai Petara. “A wretched 
man, a wretched Petfara,” is a common expression which pro- 
fesses to give the reason why any particular Dyak is poor and 
miserable—“‘ He is a miserable man, because his Petara is misera- 
ble.” The rich and poor are credited with rich and poor Petaras 
respectively, hence the state of Dyak gods may be inferred from 
the varying outward circumstances of men below. At the begin- 
ning of the yearly farming operations, the Dyak will address the 
unseen powers thus: O kita Petara Okita Ini Inda—O ye gods, 
“O ye Imi Inda.”’ Of Int Inda I have not been able to get 
any special account; but from the use of Jnz, grandmother, it 
evidently refers to female deities; or it may be only another 
appellation of Kita Petara. Now, little as this is, it is unmis- 
takeable evidence that polytheism must be regarded as the 
foundation of Sea Dyak religion. But the whole subject is one 
upon which the generality of Dyaks are very hazy, and not one of 
them, it may be, could give a connected and lucid account of their 
belief. They are not given to reasoning upon their traditions, and 
when an European brings the subject before them, they show a 
very decided unpreparedness. 

The use of the term Petara is sufficiently elastic to be applied 
to men. Not unfrequently have I heard them say of us white men: 
“ They are Pefara.” Our superior knowledge and civilization are 
so far above their own level, that we appear to them to partake of 
the supernatural. It is possible, however, that this is merely a bit 
of flattery to whitemen. When I have remonstrated with them 
on this application of the term, they have explained that they only 
mean that we appear to manifest more of the power of Petara, 
that to themselves, in what we can do and teach, we are as gods. 
Mr. Low, in his paper on the Sultans of Bruni, (?) tells us that it 
was the title of the rulers of the ancient kingdoms of Menjapahit 
and Sulok. Jt is not uninteresting to compare with this the appli- 
cation of the Hebrew Elohim to judges, as vice-gerents of God. 
( Psalm Lxxxit. 6.) 

But some of the pengap will tell us more about Petara than can 
be got from the conversation of the natives, and the first 


(2) Straits Asiatic Journal, No. 5, pp. 1-16. 


186 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


which I lay under contribution is the pengap of the Besant, a 
ceremony which is performed over children, and less frequently 
over invalids, for their recovery. It is much in vogue amongst 
the Balaus, but seldom resorted to, I think, by the other clans of 
Sea Dyaks. Like all Dyak lore, it is prolix in the extreme, and 
deluged with meaningless verbosity. I only refer to such points 
in it as will illustrate my subject. 

The object of the Besant is to obtain the presence and assistance 
of all Petaras on behalf of the child—that he may become strong 
in body, skilful in work, successful in farming, brave in war, and 
long in life. This is about the sum total of the essential significa- 
tion of the ceremony. The performers are manangs, medicine 
men, who profess to have a special acquaintance with Petaras 
above, and with the secrets of Hades beneath, and to exercise a 
magic influence over all spirits and powers which produce disease 
among their countrymen. ‘The performer then directs his song to 
the Petaras above, and implores them to look favourably upon the 
child. Somewhere at the commencement of the function, a sacri- 
fice is offered, when the Manangs sing as follows :— 

Raja Petara bla ngemata, 
Seragendah bla meda, 

Ngemeran ka subak tanah lang. 
Seragendi bla meda, 

Ngemeran ka ai mesei puloh grunong sanggang. 
Seleledu bla meda, 

Ngemeran ka jumpu meser jugu beyampong lempang. 
Seleleding bla meda, 

Ngeneran ka tinting lurus mematang. 
Silingiling bla meda, 

Ngemeran ka pating sega nsluang. 
Sengungong bla meda, 

Ngemneran ka bungkong meset benong balang. 
Bunsu Rembia bla meda, 

Ngemeran ka jengka tapang bedindang. 
Bunsu Kamba bla meda, 

Ngemeran ka bila maram jarang. 


Kings of Gods all look. 


Seragendah who has charge of the stiff, clay earth, 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 137 


Seragendi who has charge of the waters of the Hawkbell 
Tsland. | 
Seleledu who has charge of the little hills, like topnots of 
the bejampong bird. 

Seleleding who has charge of the highlands straight and 
well defined. 

Selingiling who has charge of the twigs of the sega rotan. 

Sengungong who has charge of the full grown knotted branches. 

Bunsu. Rembia Abu who has charge of the bends of the 
widespreading tapang branches. 

Bunsu Kamba equally looks down, who has charge of the plants 
of thin maram. 


All these beings are entreated to accept the offering. And these 
Royal Petaras are by no means all whose aid is asked. Others 
follow :— 


Bemata Raja Petara bla ngelala sampol nilck. 

Ari remang rarat bla nampai ngiyap, baka kempat kajang 
sabidang. 

Art pandau banyak (+) bla nampai Petara Guyak baka pantak 
labong palang. 

Art pintau kamarau sanggau, bla ngilau Petara Radau baka ti 
olih likau nabau bekengkang. 

Ari dinding ari bla nampat maremi Petara Menani, manah mati 
baka kaki long tetukang. 

Ari bulan bla nampai Petara Tebaran, betempan kaki subanq. 

Art mata-ari bla maremi Petara kamt manah mati, baka segun- 
di manang begitang. 

Ari jerit tisi langit bla nampat Petara Megit, baka kepit tanggi 
tudong temelang. 

Arti pandau bunya Petara Megu bla nampai meki langgu katun- 
song laiang. 


The Royal Petaras having eyes, all recognise, altogether look 
down. 

From the floating cloud, like an evenly cut kajang, they all 
look and wink. 


(1) This word is probably a comparatively late importation, 
“ Maioh ” is Dyak for “ many.” 


- 


138 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


From the Pleiades (1), like the glistening patterns of the long 
flowing turbans, looks also Petara Guyak. 

‘From the Milky Way (?), like golden rings of the nabau 
snake, Petara Radau is observing. 

From the rainbow (*) also, beautiful in dying like the feet of 
an opened box, Petara Menani is looking and bending. 

From the moon, like a fasting earring also, Petara Tebaran 
is looking. 

From the sun beautiful in setting, like the hanging segundi (*) 
of the manangs, our Petara is bending down. 

From the end of heaven, like the binding band of the tanggz, 
Petara Megit is looking. 

From the evening star as big as the bud of the red hibiscus, 
Petara Megu is looking. 


Odd and ludicrous as this is, in its comparison of great things 
with small, its teaching is very clear. As men have their personal 
tutelary deities, so have the different parts of the natural world. 
The soil, the hills, and the trees have their gods, through whose 
guardianship they produce their fruits. And the sun, moon, stars, 
and clouds are peopled with deities, whose favour is invoked, whose — 
look in itself is supposed to convey a blessing. 

But these Petaras are very human-like gods; for they are re- 
presented as making answer to the supplications of the manangs— 
“ How shall we not look after and guard the child, for next year (°) 
“you will make us a grand feast of rice and pork, and fish, and 
“venison, cakes and drink:”—carnal gods delighting in a good 
feed, such as the Dyaks themselves keenly appreciate. 

In this way the attention of these Petaras is supposed to have 
been aroused, and a promise to undertake the child’s welfare 
obtained. At this point, according to the assertions of the manangs, 


(+) Literally : “ the many stars,”’ ¢.c., many in one cluster. 

(?) Literally : “ the high ridges of long drought.” 

(3) “ Dinding ari,” “protection of the day,” is a small part of 
the rainbow appearing just above the horizon. The 
whole bow is called “ Anak Raja.” 

(*) “ Segundi,” a vessel used by the manangs in their incanta- 
tions on behalf of the sick. 

(°) This refers to the concluding half of the ceremony which is 
performed at some subsequent times. 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 139 


the Petaras from some point in the firmament shake their charms 
in the direction of the child :— 


“‘ Since we have looked down, 
“Come now, friends, 
“ Let us, in a company, wave the medicine charms.” 


And so they wave the shadow of their magical influence upon 
the child. 
But there are still more Petaras to come :— 


Pupus Petara kebong langit, 

Niu Petara puchok kaiyu. 

Having finished the Petaras in mid-heavens, 
We come to the Petaras of the tree-tops. 


And they sing of the gods inhabiting trees, and among these 
are monkeys, birds, and insects, or spirits of them. From the 
trees they come to the land :— 

Pupus Petara puchok kuiyu, 
Nelah Petara tengah tanah. 


Having finished the Petaras of the tree-tops, 
We mention the Petaras in the midst of the earth. 


In this connection, many more Petaras are recounted. 

But the Besant tells something more than the number and 
names of gods. The whole function consists of two celebrations, 
the second of which takes place at an interval of a year, and 
sometimes more, after the first. In the first part, the Petaras 
are “brought” to some point in the firmament, or it may be, to 
some neighbouring hill, from which they see the child. In the 
second, they are “ brought ” to the house where the ceremony is 
being performed, in order to leave there the magic virtue of their 
presence. A large part of the incantation is the same in both; and 
at a certain part of the second the Petaras are represented as 
saying :— 7 

“ Before we have looked down, 
“* Now a company of men are inviting us to the feast.” 


And in compliance with the invitation, they prepare for the jour- 
ney earthwards. The female Petaras are described, at great 


140 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


length, as putting on their finest garments and most valuable orna- 
ments—brass rings round their bodies, necklaces of precious 
stones, earrings and head decorations, beads and hawkbells, and 
everything, in short, to delight feminine taste and beauty. Then 
the male Petaras do the same, and equip themselves with waist- 
cloth, coat and turban, and brass ornaments on arms and legs. A 
start is then made with several of the goddesses, renowned for 
their knowledge of the way as guides, to lead the way ; but these 
prove to be sadly at fault, for, after going some distance, they find 
the road leads to nowhere, and they have to retrace their steps, 
and go by way of the sun and moon and stars ; and from the stars 
they get at some peculiar grassy spot, where they find a trunk of 
a fallen tree down which they walk to our lower regions. Here 
they sing how these Petaras from the skies are joined by all the 
Petaras of the hills and trees and lowlands, and by Salampanda : 
and then all together, in one motley company, they wend their way. 
to the house where the Besant is being made. Just as a Dyak 
would bathe after coming from a long walk, so these gods and 
goddesses are described as bathing, and their beauty descanted 
upon. Their approach to the house I pass over, but just before 
going up the ladder into it, the elder Petaras think it necessary to 
give a moral admonition to the whole company :— 


Ka abi rumah anang meda ; 

Unggai ka ngumbar ngiga serenti jan. — - 
Ka gaulenggang anang nentang ; 

Unggai ka ngumbai ngiga tugang manok lakz. 
Ka ruat anang nampar; 

Unggai ka ngumbai ngiga tee 
Ka bilik anang nilik ; 

Unggai ka signal ngiga tajau menyade. 
Ka sadau anang ngilau ; 


Unggai ka ngumbai ngiga padi. 


To the space under the house do not look ; 
Lest they should think you seek a pig’s tusk. 
To the henroost do not sit opposite ; 
Lest they should think you seek a tail feather of the 
fighting cock, 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 141 


To the verandah do not cast your eyes ; 

Lest they should think you are seeking a husband. 
Into the room do not peep ; 

Lest they should think you are seeking a jar. 
To the attic do not look up ; 

Lest they should think you are seeking rice. 


After this they are supposed to enter the house, of course an 
invisible company; and to partake of the good things of the feast 
together with the Dyaks, gods and men feeding together in har- 
mony. After all is over they return to their respective abodes. 


It is a miserable, low and earthly conception of God and gods ; 
hardly perhaps to be called belief in gods, but belief in beings 
just like themselves: yet they are supposed to be such as can bes- 
tow the highest blessings Dyaks naturally desire. The grosser the 
nature of a people, the grosser will be their conception of deities 
or deity. We can hardly expect a high and spiritual conception 
of deity from Dyaks in their present intellectual condition and low 
civilization. Their’s is a conception which produces no noble aspi- 
rations, and has no power to raise the character; yet it has a touch- 
ing interest for the Christian student, for it enshrines this great 
truth, that man needs intercommuuion with the Deity in order to 
live a true life. The Dyak works this out in a way which most 
effectually appeals to his capacities and sympathics. 

TI turn now to a sanpi, an invocation often said at the commence-. 
ment of the yearly rice-farming; in other words, a prayer to those 
superior powers which are supposed to preside over the growth of 
rice. First of all, Pulang Gana is invoked ; then the Sun, who is 
ealled Datu Patinggi Mata-ari, and his light-giving, heat-giving 
influence recounted in song. After the Sun comes a bird, the 
Kaira ; then the padi spirit ( Saniang Padi), then the sacred 
birds, that is, those whose flight and notes are observed as omens ; 
all these are prayed to give their presence. Leaving the birds, the 
performer comes to Petara “whom he also calls, whom he also 
“invokes.” ‘“ What Petara,”’ it is asked, “do you invoke?” ‘The 
answer is: “ Petara who cannot be empty-handed, who cannot be 
“barren, who cannot be wrong, who cannot be unclean;” and 
thereupon follow their names :—Sanggul Laboug, Pinang Lpong, 


142 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


Kling Bungat Nuiying, Laja Bungai Jawa, Batu Inu, Baty 
Nyantau, Batu Nyantar, Batu Gawa, Batu Nyanggak, Nyawin, 
Jamba, Pandong, Kendawang, Panggau, Apai Mapai, Kling; each 
from his mythical habitation “come all, come every one; without 
“stragglers, without deserters.” And this call of the sous of men 
is heard, and the Petaras make answer: “ Be well and happy, ye 
“sons of men living in the world.” 
“ You give us rice, 
‘“ You give us cakes ; 
‘“ You give us rice-beer, 
“ You give us spirit ; 
‘You give us an offering, 
“ You give us a spread. 
“ Vf you farm, all alike shall get padi. 
“ If you go to war, all alike shall get a head. 
“Tf you sleep, all alike shall have good dreams. 
“ If you trade, all alike shall be skilful in selling. 
“In your hands, all alike shall be effective. 
“In just dealing, all alike shall have the same heart. 
“In discourse, ail alike shall be skilful and connected. 


Then, leaving this company of Petaras, the sampi proceeds to 
invoke in a special manner one particular Petara, of whom more 
is said than of all the proceeding. This ts Ini Andan Petara 
Buban—Grandmother Andan, the grey-haired Petara.” Her qua- 
lities are complete. “She has a coat for thunder and heat; she 
“is strong against the lightning, and endures in the rain, and is 
“brave in the darkness. To cease working is impossible to her. 
“In the house her hands are never idle, in talking her speech is 
“pure, her heart is full of understanding. And this is why she is 
“called, why she is beckoned to, why she is offered sacrifice, why 
“a feast is spread.” She can communicate these powers to her 
servants. Moreover, they would obtain her assistance as being 
“the chief-keeper of the broad lands and immenses, where they 
“may farm and fill the padi bins; the chief-keeper of the long 
“ winding river, where they may beat the strong tuba root; as 
“ chief-keeper of the great rock, the parent stone, where they may 
“ sharpen the stecl-edged weapons; as chief-keeper of the bee- 
“ trees, where they may shake the sparks of the burning torches.” 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS, 143 


But to watch over the farm and guard it from evils is her special 
province ; and for this her presence is specially desired. 

“Tf the mpangau (+) should hover over it, let her shake at them 
“ the sparks of fire. 

“If the bengas (2) should approach, let her squeeze the juice 
“of the strong tuba root. 

“Tf the ants should come forth, let her rub it (the farm) with 
a rag dipped in coal-tar. 
“Tf the locusts should run over it, let her douch them with oil 
“ over a bottle full. 
“ Tf the pigs should come near, let her set traps all day long. 
“If the deer should get near it, let her kill them with bamboo 
spikes. 
“Tf the mouse-deer should have a look at it, let her set snares 
all the day long. 
“Tf the roe should step over it, let her set bamboo traps. 
“Tf the sparrows should peck at it, let her fetch a little gutta 
‘of the tekalong tree. 
“If the monkeys should injure it, let her fix a rotan snare. 
“That there may be nothing to hurt it, nothing to interfere 
“ with it.” 

In answer to their entreaty, she replies in a similar way to the 
Petaras before mentioned, and pronounces upon them her blessings 
of success, prosperity and wealth, and skill, as a return for the offer- 
ing made to her. And thus the Dyak thinks to buy his padi crop 
from the powers above. 


- 
" 


Int Andan, as she is preparing to take leave of her worshippers 
according to the sampi, bestows some charms and magical medi- 
cines, mostly in the form of stones, and afterwards gives a part- 
ing exhortation :— 


“ Hear my teaching, ye sons of men. 
“When you farm, be industrious in work. 
“When you sleep, do not be over-much slaves of the eyes. 


“ When people assemble, do not forget to ask the news. 


(-) A kind of bug. 
(?) A peculiar insect destructive to the young padi plants, 


144. PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


* Do not quarrel with others. 

“ Do not give your friends bad names. 
“ Corrupt speech do not utter. 

“ Do not be envious of one another. 

“ And you will all alike get padi. 
“All alike be clean of heart. 

“ All alike be clever of speech. 


“ T now make haste to return. 

“ T use the wind as my ladder. 

“T go to the crashing whirlwind. 

“T return to my country in the cloudy moon.” 


Traditionary lore and popular thought thus tell the same tale ; 
the latter imagines the universe peopled with many gods, so that 
each man has his own guardian deity ; and the former professes to 
put before us who and what, at least, some of these are. The 
traces of a belief in the unity of deity referred to at the beginning 
of this paper, 1s at most but a faint echo of an ancient and purer 
faith ; a faith buried long ago in more earthly ideas. Yet even 
now Dyaks are met with who say that there is only one Petara ; 
but when they are confronted with the teaching of the pengap, 
and with unmistakeable assertions of gods many, they explain this 
unity as implying nothing more than a unity of origin. In the 
beginning of things there was one Petara just as there was one 
human being; and this Petara, was the ancestor of a whole family 
of Petaras in heaven and earth, just as the first man was the ances- 
tor of the inhabitants of the world. But this unity of origin does 
not amount in their minds to a conception of a First Great Cause ; 
yet it is an echo of a belief which is still a silent witness to the One 
True God. 


It has been said that “every form of polytheism is sprung from 
“nature worship.” It is very clear that Dyak gods are begotten of 
nature’s manifold manifestations. Ini Andan seems a concrete 
expression of her generating producing power. The sun and moon, 
stars and clouds, the earth with its hills and trees and natural 
fertility, are all channels of beneficial influences to man, and the 
Dyak feels his dependence upon them ; he has to conduct his sim- 
ple farming subject to their operations; his rice-crop depends 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS, 145 


upon the weather, and upon freedom from many noxious pests 
over which he feels little or no control—rats, locusts and insects 
innumerable ; he gets gain from the products of the jungle, and 
loves its fruits: high hills surrounded with floating clouds, and 
the violent thunder storms, are regarded with something of myste- 
rious awe; he must invoke these powers, for he wants them to be 
on his side in the weary work of life’s toils, and the struggle for 
existence ; and thus he imagines each phenomenon to be the work- 
ing of a god, and worships the gods he has imagined. 


I must now refer to three beings which have been mentioned 
before, and which occupy a peculiar position in Dyak belief, as 
holding definite functions in the working of the world. These are 
Salampandai, Pulang Gana, and Singalang Burong. 


Salampandai is a female spirit, and the maker of men, some say 
by her own independent power, some by command of Petara. The 
latter relate that in the beginning Petara commanded her to make 
a man, and she made one of stone, but it could not speak and 
Petara refused to accept it. She set to work again and fashioned 
one of iron, but neither could that speak, and so was rejected. The 
third time she made one of clay which had the power of speech, 
and Petara was pleased, and said: “ Good 1s the man you have 
“made, let him be the ancestor of men.’”” And so Salampandai ever 
afterwards formed human beings, and is forming them now, at her 
anvil in the unseen regions. There she hammers out children as 
they are born into the world, and when each one is formed it is 
presented to Petara, who asks: “ What would you hke to handle 
“and use?” If it answer: “The parang, the sword and spear,” 
Petara pronounces 1t a boy; but if it answer: “ Cotton and the 
“spinning wheel,’ Petara pronounces it a female. Thus they are 
determined boys or girls according to their own choice. 


Another theory makes Petara the immediate creator of men, 
and of all things :— 


“ Langit Petara dulu mibit, 
“ Meset dunggul manok banda. 
“ Tanah Petara dulu ngaga, 
“ Mesei buah mbawang blanja. 


146 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS, 


“Ai Petara dulu ngiri, 

“ Mesei linti tali besara. 

“ Tanah lang Petara dulu nenchang, 

“ Nyadi mensia. 

“ Petara first stretched out the heavens, 

‘“‘ As big as the comb of the red-feathered cock. 
“ The earth Petara first created, 

“ As big as the fruit of the horse mango. 
“The waters Petara first poured out, 

“ As great as the strands of the rotan rope. 
“ The stiff clay Petara first beat out, 

“ And it became man.” 


But here Petara may be any particular being, and may inelude 
a multitude of gods. There are other theories of creation or cos- 
mogony, but they cannot be examined here. 

There are no special observances in direct honour of Salampan- 
dai. In the Besant, she is brought to be present along with the 
Petaras. But this great spirit, never, I presume, visible in her 
own person, is supposed to have a manifestation in the realm of 
visible things in a creature something like a frog, which is also 
called Salampandai. Naturally this creature is regarded with 
reverence, and must not be killed. If it goes up into a Dyak 
house, they cffer it sacrifice, and let 1b go again, but it is very 
seldom seen. It is one with the unseen spirit. The noise it 
makes is said to be the sound of the spirit’s hammer, as she works 
at-her anvil. So intimate is the connection that what is attributed 
to the ove, is also attributed to the other. The creature is sup- 
posed to be somewhere near the house, whenever a child is born: 
if it approaches from behind, they say the child will be girl; if in 
front, a boy. In this case we have an instance of direct nature 
worship, and it is not the only one to be found amongst the Dyaks. 

Pulang Gana is the tutelary deity of the soil, the spirit presid- 
ing over the whole work of rice-farming. According to a myth 
handed down in some parts, he is of human parentage. Svmpang- 
impang at her first accouchement brought forth nothing but blood 
which was thrown away into a hole of the earth. This by some 
mystical means, became Pulang Ganz, who therefore lives in the 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 14:7 


bowels of the earth, and has sovereign rights over it. Other 
offspring of Simpang-impang were ordinary human beings, who in 
course of time began to cut down the old jungle to make farms. 
On returning to their work of felling trees the second morning, 
they found that every tree which had been cut down the day before 
was, by some unknown means, set up again, and growing as firmly 
as ever. Again they worked with their axes, but on coming to 
the ground the third morning they found the same extraordinary 
phenomenon repeated. They then determined to watch during the 
following night, in order to discover, if possible, the cause of the 
mystery. Under cover of darkness Pulang Gana came, and began 
to set the fallen trees upright as he had done before. They laid 
hold of him, and asked why he frustrated their labours. He 
replied: “Why do you wrong me, by not acknowledging my 
“authority ? I am Pulang Gana, your elder brother, who was 
“ thrown into the earth, and now I hold dominion over it. Before 
“attempting to cut down the jungle, why did you not borrow the 
“land from me?” “ How?” they asked. “ By making me sacri- 
“ fice and offering’ Hence, Dyaks say, arose the custom of sacri- 
ficing to Pulang Gana at the commencement of the yearly farming 
operations, a custom now universal among them. Sometimes these 
yearly sacrifices are accompanied by festivais held in his honour- 
the Gawei Batu, and the Gawei Bench, the Festival of the Whet- 
stones and the Festival of the Seed. 

In the Dyak mind, spirits and magical virtues are largely associ- 
ated with stones. Any remarkable rock, especially if isolated in 
position, is almost sure to be the object of some kind of cultus. 
Small stones of many kinds are kept as charms, and I have known 
a common glass marble inwrought with various colours passed oft 
as the “egg of astar,’ and so greatly valued as being an infalli- 
ble defence against disease, &c. The whetstones, therefore, 
although made from a common sandstone rock, are things of some 
mysterious importance. They sharpen the chopper and the axe 
which have to clear the jungle and prepare the farm. There is 
something more than mere matter about them, and they must be 
blessed. At the Gawei Batu, the neighbours are assembled to wit- 
ness the ceremony and share in the feast, and the whetstones are 
arranged along the public verandah of the house, and the per- 


148 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


formers go round and round them, chanting a request to Pulang 
Gana for his presence and aid, and for good luck to the farm. The 
result is supposed to be that Pulang Gane comes up from his sub- 
terranean abode to bestow his presence and occult influence, and 
a pig is then sacrificed to him. In the Gawez Benih, the proceed- 
ing is similar, but having the seed for its object. 


Pulang Gana is, therefore, an important power in Dyak belief, 
as upon his good-will is supposed to depend, in great measure, the 
staff of life. 

Singalang Burong must now be mentioned. His name probably 
means the Bird-Chief. Dyaks are great omen observers, and 
amongst the omens, the notes and flight of certain birds are the 
most important. These birds are regarded with reverence. On 
one oceasion, when walking through the jungle, I shot one, a beau- 
tiful creature, and I asked a Dyak who was with me to carry it. 
Ue shrank from touching it with his fingers, and carefully wrap- 
ped it in leaves before carrying it. No doubt he regarded my act 
as somewhat impious. All the birds, to which this cultus is given, 
are supposed to be personifications and manifestations of the same 
number of beings in the spirit world, which beings are the sons- 
in-law of Singalang Burong (:). As spirits they exist in human 
form, but are as swift in their movements as birds, thus uniting 
man and bird in one spirit-being. Singalang Burong, too, stands 
at the head of the Dyak pedigree. They trace their descent from 
him, either as a man who once lived on the earth, or as a spirit. 
From hin they learnt the system of omens, and through the spirit 
birds, his sons-in-law, he still communicates with his descendants. 
One of their festivals is called, “ Giving the birds to eat, ” that 1s, 
offering them a sacrifice. 

But further, Singalang Burong may be said to be the Sea Dyak 
god of war, and the guardian spirit of brave men. He delights in 
war, «nd head-taking is his glory. When Dyaks have obtained a 
head, either by fair means or foul, they make a grand sacrifice 


(1) It should be stated that Singalang Burong has his coun- 
ter-part and manifestation in the world, in a fine white and brown 
hawk, which is called by his name. 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 149 


and feast in bis honour, and invoke his presence. But it is un- 
necessary to enlarge upon this, for some account of the Mars ot 
Sea Dyak mythology has already appeared in the Straits Asiatic 
Journal. (See No. 2.) 

Now, what with these beings. and with the Petaras, it is no 
wonder that the Dyak, when brought face to face with his own 
confessions, acknowledges himself in utter confusion on the whole 
subject of the powers above him; that he owns to worshipping 
anything which is supposed to have power to help him or hurt him—- 
God or spirit, ghost of man or beast—all are to be reverenced and 
propitiated. When inconsistencies in his belef are pointed out, 
all he says is, that he does not understand it, that he simply 
believes and practices what his forefathers have handed down to 
him. 

But it is to be observed, as significant, that in sickness, or the 
near prospect of death, it is not Sérgalang Burong, or Pulang Gana, 
or Salampandai (which by the way are not commonly called 
Petara); it is not Kling, or Bungai, Nuiying, or any other mytho- 
logical hero that is thought of as the life-giver, but simply Petara, 
whatever may be the precise idea they attach to the term. The 
antu (spirit) indeed causes the sickness, and wants to kill, and so 
has to be scared away; but Petara is regarded as the saving 
power. If an invalid is apparently beyond all human skill, it is 
Petara alone who can help him. If he dies, it is Petara who has 
allowed the life to pass away by not coming to the rescue. ‘The 
Dyak may have groped about in a life-long polytheism, but some- 
thing like a feeling after the One True Unknown seems to return at 
the close of the mortal pilgrimage. The only thing which implies 
the contrary, as far as I know, is, that very occasionally a function 
in honour of Singalang Burong has been held on behalf of a sick 
person, but it is exceedingly rare. 

Although the whole conception of Petara is far from an exalted 
one, yet it is good being. Except as far as causing or allowing 
human creatures to die may be regarded by them as signs of a 
malevolent disposition, no evil is attributed to Petara. It is a 
power altogether on the side of justice and right. The ordeal of 
diving is an appeal to Petuwra to declare for the innocent and 
overthrow the guilty. Petara “cannot be wrong, cannot be un- 


150 -PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


ce 


clean.” Petara approves of industry, of honesty, of purity of 
speech, of skill in word and work. Petara Ini Andan exhorts to 
“spread a mat for the traveller, to be quick in giving rice to the 
‘“ hungry, not to be slow to give water to the thirsty, to joke with 
‘those who have heaviness at heart, and to encourage with talk 
‘“the slow of speech; not to give the fingers to stealing, nor to 
‘allow the heart to be bad.” Immorality among the unmarried is 
supposed to bring a plague of rain upon the earth, as a punish- 
ment inflicted by Petara. It must be atoned for with sacrifice 
and fine. In a function which is sometimes held to procure fine 
weather, the excessive rain is represented as the result of the 
immorality of two young people. Petara is invoked, the offenders 
are banished from their home, and the bad weather is said to cease. 
Every district traversed by an adulterer is believed to be accursed 
of the gods until the proper sacrifice has been offered. Thus in 
eeneral Petara is against man’s sin; but over and above moral 
offences they have invented many sins, which are simply the 
infringement of pemate, or tabu—things trifling and superstitious, 
yet they are supposed to expose the violators to the wrath of the 
gods, and prevent the bestowal of their gitt; and thus the whole 
subject of morality is degraded and perverted. 

The prevailing idea Dyaks commonly entertain of Petara is that 
of the preserver of men. In the song of the head feast, when the 
messengers, in going up to the skies to fetch Singalang Burong 
down, pass the house of Petara, they invite him to the feast, but 
he replies: “I cannot go down, for mankind would come to grief 
“in my absence. Even when I wink or go to bathe, they cut 
‘ themselves, or fall down.” Petara does not leave his habitations, 
for he takes care of men, and so far as he fails in this, he fails in 
his duty. So in an invocation said by the manangs, when they 
wave the sacrificial fowl over the sick :— 


> 


Laboh daun buloh, 
Tangkap ikan dungan ; 
Antu kah munoh, 
Petara naroh ngembuan. 


Ser ees ee 


PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 151 


Laboh daun buloh, 
Tangkap ikan mplasi ; 
Antu kah munoh, 
Petara ngaku menyadi. 


Laboh daun buloh, 
Tangkap ikan semah ; 
Antu kah munoh, 

Petara ngambu sa-rumah. 


_ Laboh daun buloh, 
Tangkap tkan juak ; 
Antu kat munoh, 


Petara ngaku anak. 


When the bambu leaf falls, 

And is caught by the dungan fish ; 
And the antu wants to kill, 
Petara puts in safe preservation. 


When the bambu leaf falls, 

And is caught by the mplasi fish, 
And the antu wants to kall, 
Petara will confess a brother. 


When the bambu leaf falls, 

And is caught by the semah fish ; 

And the antu wants to kill, 

Petara will claim him as of his household. 


When the bambu leaf falls, 
And is caught by the juak fish ; 
And the antu wants to kill, 
Petara will confess a child. 


When human life droops as a falling leaf, and the evil spirits, 
like hungry fish, are ready to swallow it up, then Petara comes in 
and claims the life as his, his child, his brother, and preserves it 
alive. The ceremony of the Besant is an elaboration of this idea, 
an idea to which, above all others, the Dyaks cling; for the world 


152 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 


is full, they think, of evil spirits ever on the alert to them, but 
the subject of these antus opens up a new field of thought which 
cannot be entered now. 


Petaras are not worshipped in temples, nor through the medium 
of idols. Their idea of gods corresponds so closely to the idea of 
men, the one rising so little above the other, that probably they 
have never felt the necessity of representing Petara by any spe- 
cial material form. Petar is their own shadow projected into 
the higher regions. Any conception men form of God must be 
more or less anthropomorphic, more especially the conception of 
the savage. He “invests God with bodily attributes. As man’s 
“knowledge changes, his idea of God changes; as he mounts 
“the scale of existence, his consciousness becomes clearer and 
‘“‘ more luminous, and his continual idealization of his better self 
“is an ever improving reflex of the divine essence.” (*) 


() Origin and Development of Religious Beliefs. 8. Barine 
Gouin. » Vol. pa 167. 


( From the ‘“‘ ANNALES DE L’ Extrime Ortent,” August, 1879.) 


KLOUWANG AND ITS CAVES, 
Peoroe OALST OF ATCHIN. 
TRAVELLING NOTES OF 
eee EO Woe bb ON: 

Civil Engineer of Mines. 

TRANSLATED BY 


mF A. BERVEY. 


OR three days we remained in sight of the port of Klou- 
wang (') without being able to reach it, our vessel, 
though one. of the finest sailers of the Straits, being 
unable to overcome the resistance offered by the wind 
and current, which seem to have combines against us. 

At last, on the morning of the third day, thanks to a light breeze 


(1) The port of Klouwang is situated on the West coast, thirty 
miles South of Achin Head. The bay is excellent, being sheltered 
by an almost round and very lofty island, the shores of which are 
perpendicular cliffs. Thus the port has two entrances, the wider 
and safer being the Northern, the narrower lying to the South 
West; the latter is rendered a little dangerous by a line of break- 
ers, which, however, protects the port from the Southerly winds. 
The anchorage of Klouwang is very good in all seasons, but the 
port unfortunately can only contain three or four vessels. The 
Raja is Toncou Lampass£, who, during the war with Achiy, has 
supplied the Dutch with information regarding the opinions and 
plans of the Achinese. The river Klouwang is small, and flows 
from the S. EB. to the N. W.; its entrance is a little to the left of 
the bay, and is rendered very difficult of passage by rocks at water 
level. The country produces about 4,000 pikuls of pepper ; before 
the war it produced 10,000 pikuls, 


154 KLOUWANG AND ITS CAVES. 


from seawards, we gained the entrance of the port, but truly not 
without difficulty, for the breeze grew so faint, that our vessel, no 
longer answering to the helm, entered the port quite obliquely, 
under the influsnce of a current, which carried us within a few 
metres of the breakers near the entrance of the port. 

The South entrance, by which we arrived, is splendid ; to the right 
is a voleanic isle, the foot of which is so hollowed by the waves, 
that from a distance it resembles an enormous mushroom; its 
shores are very steep and quite denuded of vegetation, a few 
shrubs appearing on the summit only, but the natives assert that 
there is no path which will allow of an ascent so far. 

In the bank which we are passing, the sea has hollowed out im- 
mense caves, where the swallow builds those nests so much sought 
after by Chinese gourmets. 

Ou the side of the island facing the port, is a charming strand 
formed of saud and shells, and shaded by shrubs which are over- 
shadowed by the crowns of countless cocoanut palms. 

On our left, the line of breakers, upon which we had so narrow- 
ly eseaped running, protects the port from the southerly squalls, 
and only leaves between it and the island of Klouwang a narrow 
passage 100 metres across. A little further on, a delightful stretch 
of sand extends to the foot of Mount Timbega (copper) [ Malay 
“Témbiga”],; which is somewhat peculiar in shape ; it is an immense 
cone cut obliquely, which seems to have been deposited in the 
middle of the plain, whence it emerges as from the midst of an 
ocean of verdure. Its almost perpendicular steeps are clothed 
with an abundant vegetation, the deep hue of which contrasts 
forcibly with the brilliant white of the strand. The latter, after 
performing half the circuit of the port, stretches before us in a 
smiling valley closely walled in, and here, in the midst of a charm- 
ing scenery, lies hid the Kampong ( village ) of Klouwang, and the 
little river bearing the same name. 

The North entrance, while larger and more commodious than the 
Southern, is much less picturesque. It is formed by the island on 
one side, and on the other by a rather steep mountain lying on the 
left side of the mouth of the river Klouwang. Hardly had we 
dropped anchor before we landed on the island to examine care- 
fully the strand which lay before us, and also, as will be readily 


KLOUWANG AND ITS CAVES. 155 


understood, to satisfy the longing which filled us to feel under foot 
something more solid than the deck of our schooner, which we had 
not left for ten days. 

Nothing can be imagined so charming and so picturesque as 
this strand, which the island shelters completely from the fury and 
raging of the sea. 

At some distance from the shore, which the waters gently caress, 
is hidden an Achinese dwelling, in a forest of cocoanut, areca, and 
other palms, which protect it from the solar rays ; a little further 
off is a pepper plantation, admirably cultivated, where birds in the 
ereatest variety sing to their hearts’ content. As a background to 
the picture, rises the rocky mass of the island, presenting a vertical 
wall, cut, or rather torn about, in the strangest fashion, and covered 
over with a thick curtain of green, which seems to have been fas- 
tened to the points of the rock by some magician. Here Nature 
seems to have amused herself by gathering together the greatest 
variety of shrubs, and the most peculiar plants to be found in the 
tropical world ; leaves displaying the greatest diversity of shape 
and colour combine with the rocky points, which here and there 
erop up, to form a wondrous mosaic. 

A crowd of monkeys of all sizes disport themselves amidst the 
shrubs, which appear to cling to the rocks only by enchantment, and 
run along the monkey-ropes which droop in every direction, forming 
an inextricable net. 

The island is composed chiefly of trachyte, crossed by numerous 
bands of quartz and porphyry. I noticed also in several places 
masses of selenite and melaphyre covered by overflows of lava. 

On my return to the vessel, 1 was shewn enormous black pud- 
dings, about a foot long (0m.30 de long ) among the coral rocks 
which skirt the shore; they are the “ holothurion,” or sea-leech, 
ealled “tripang” by the Malays, who make it the object of an 
important trade; it is preserved, and highly appreciated by the 
Chinese. 

The next morning we made the tour of the island in a boat. The 
rock, worn by the sea, in some places projects more than fifteen 
metres beyond its base. Every moment great birds (called in 
Malay “kaka” ) flew out of the corners in the rock with a great 
noise ; they were armed with enormous yellow beaks, which seemed 


156 KLOUWANG AND ITS CAVES. 


to greatly embarrass the owners, and gaye them such an original 
expression, that we were never tired of admiring them. 

On turning the point of the island, I could not repress an excla- 
mation of surprise. In front of us was a magnificent cave inhabi- 
ted by millions of swallows, whose piercing cries mingled with the 
deep murmur of the sea, produced, on their reverberation from the 
distant depths of the cavern, an awe-inspiring sound, which had no 
ordinary effect upon the mind. 

One could not but feel small in the presence of these grand 
phenomena of Nature, and silently wonder at the work and its Crea- 
tor. 

The first moments of wonder and admiration passed, we entered 
the cavern, an immense subterranean canal some fifteen to twenty 
metres high and ten to twelve metres in width: bambu seaffoldings, 
extraordinary at once for their lightness and boldness of construe- 
tion, enable the Atchinese to collect the swallows’ nests. 


Ten metres from the entrance, a fresh surprise awaited us. A sub- 
marine communication between the cavern and the sea allows a 
cleam of light to penetrate at the bottom of the water, and this, in 
its passage, illuminates the fish whose seales flash countless colours 
scattering everywhere multicoloured reflections with fairy-lke 
effect. 


The subterranean canal soon turns to the right, penetrating into 
the heart of the island, whither it continues its course for a great 
distance, for the murmur of the sea reverberates endlessly ; but 
the darkness prevented our going any farther. 

Between this point, E.S.H., and the port is another avenue, the 
two entrances to which are above the sea ; they are at an elevation, 
the one of twenty metres, the other of about thirty-five metres ; for 
some time we could not find a point where it was possible to land ; 
everywhere the sea-worn rock was vertical when it did not over- 
hang us; at last, two-hundred metres farther on, we found a spot 
where the rock had fallen down and where we could land; we then 
contrived, sometimes by leaping from rock to rock, sometimes by 
making use of the unevennesses on the surface of the wall of rock, 
to reach the upper entrance, where a marvellous sight repaid us for 
our trouble. A vast cavern lay open before us. At our feet and 


KLOUWANG AND ITS CAVES. L5Z 


at a depth of about thirty metres was a black unfathomable gulf, 
whence arose the deep murmur of the waters. About fifteen 
metres below, to the right, was the other entrance, resembling an 
immense wiidow opening upon the sea. Before us the cavern 
seemed to extend indefinitely into the shade, and the green and 
blue tints of the rock growing gradually darker and darker formed 
a strange contrast to the magnificent pearl-grey of the stalactites 
which hung on our right ; above us the rock was of a dead white, 
whilst the floor of the cavern, which seemed to be the ancient bed 
of a torrent, presented a series of striking and sharply-marked 
tiers of colour, resembling a painter’s palctte. The most brilliant 
decorations of our pantomimes could give but a feeble idea of the 
maenificent tableau we had before us. 


Leaping from rock to rock, we descended to the floor of the 
erotto, which is formed of pebbles and water-brought soil (*) ; this 
fioor rises with a gentle slope towards the interior ; after one hun- 
dred paces all became so dark around us, that we were obliged to 
hight torches ; on every side crossed each other in flight millions of 
swallows, which deafened us with their piercing cries, while our 
torehlight lent to the gigantic bambu seaffoldings the most pic- 
turesque effect; every time they flared up the cavern was illumi- 
nated to great distances, and we suddenly perceived an inextricable 
web of bambus, white rocks and streamlets, which appeared to mul- 
tiply as we advanced, when suddenly all vanished in darkness ; the 
effect was most fantastic. 


The soil of the cavern, in which we sank up to our knees, is light 
and dry, being formed of the excrement of the swallows ; insects 
breed there in great numbers and the glare of the torches reflected 
on their armour produced a splendid play of light. The soil seemed 
made of precious stones flashing across at each other at our fect. 


See ees 


(1) The fact can only be explained by supposing that the floor 
of the cavern was originally below the level of the sea. It is one 
of many observations I have recorded, which shew indisputably the 
ascending movement of Malaya; this movement is being still con- 
tinued in our time, as observations made at other points of the 
East and West coasts of Sumatra have shewn me. 


7 ae 


i 
hy 


158 KLOUWANG AND ITS CAVES. 


As we advanced, the subterranean passages multiplied and grew 
narrower; it was a labyrinth out of which we thought at one 
moment we should be unable to find our way, for our torches were 
beginning to be used up, and we were not very sure as to the direc- 
tion we ought to take. We now heard to the left a dull sound 
which indicated another communication with the sea, perhaps with 
he cavern we first visited. Then a little further to the right we 
deseried a feeble glimmer of light at the vault of the cavern, but it 
was impossible to reach this opening, owing to its great height. 


The cavern probably extends under a great portion of the island, 
but unfortunately our torches were burnt out, and we were obliged, 
to our great regret, to return to the ship without having explored 
the whole of it. 


In the evening, the breeze became favourable, and at eleven 
o’clock on a splendid night, such as can only be seen in Malaya, we 
weighed anchor, carryin? with us one of the most pleasing souvenirs 
of our whole voyage. ; 


MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 


VARIETIES OF “GHTAH”’ AND “ ROTAN.” 


Meagre though it is, I insert the following list of native names 

_ of the different varieties of “ gétah” and “rdtan,” in the hope that 

it may be of some slight use to those who are interested in these 
products of the jungle. 


Be PAS Ee 


Gétah taban. 


2? 


3? 


3? 


2? 


erit. 

géerit putih. (Gives an itch.) 

jelotong. (White and red) 

anjayus or menjayus. 

pudu 

sélambau. 

rélang. 

tyil. 

béringin. 

percha. (Z.e., ragged.) 

kétian. (Has a sweet, aromatic-flavoured, small, white, 
fleshy flower, which is very pleasant to 
the taste, and is always eaten by the 
natives when met with.) 

rachun. (%.€., poison.) 

jela. 

jitan. (Gétah used as ointment for péru, or ulcerated 

Sores. ) 
chaloi. 


akar stisu putri, (Root covered with humps.) 


L160 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 


Gétah sérapat. 
. sundek. 
op ee aberanp: : 
Rotan tunggal. 
pS ababi 
»  krei. (or kral in Pahang.) 
lébun. 
,  tawar or gétah. 
bakau. 
4) Weems 
»  prit dyam. 
2 nanan 
chinchin. 
hidang. 
»  hidang tikus. 
7 peledas: 
PS eeolliinie 
eae salute 
7 Gahan: 
,  sengkeélah. 
ay OWEN a 
.  sémambu. 
5 dudok. 
Pe echachare 
x SESE 
stgel. 
ee laehime 
elie, 
stga. 
» sega badak. (Grows near water.) 
»  jJernang. 
»  senényer or bras. 
,, dini. (Grows near the sca.) 
>» \perdas. 


MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 161 


Tuer “Jpon” TrREE—P&RAK. 


The Resident of Pérak having collected some of the juice of this 
tree, it was sent to Kew, together with some of the leaves, for 
identification. 

Sir Josep Hooker was good enough to submit it to Professor 
OxIvER, who wrote as follows :— 

“The ‘Ipoh’ from Pérak is either the Upas (antiaris toxicaria) 
“or a close ally. Our specimens hardly differ, except in being 
~~“ more giabrous. 

““GrirFitH labels a specimen ‘The small-leaved Epoo or Jackoon 
“* poison.’ 

“He adds: ‘Arsenic is mixed with the milk, which is said to be 
“ otherwise inert.’ 

“The Pérak specimens are without flower or fruit.” 

Professor Rixcer, also, reports that the specimen sent “is abso- 
“Jutely destitute of poisonous properties of any kind. It has in 
“fact no effect physiologically at all.” 


COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY. 


aes 


English. Fijian. C) New Zealand.(*) 
Man Tangani (*) Tangata (*) 
Woman Alewa Wahine (*) 
Husband Vei watini (°) Tona Tane (7) 
Wife Vei ndavoleni (°) Tona Wahine (°) 
Father Tama Matua Tane (°) 
Mother Tina Matua Wahine (*°) 
Child Luve Tamaite (+7) 
Belly Keti Kupu 
Blood Ndra Toto 
Body Nango "06° > | eee 
Bone Sui icra 


(7) Collected by the Hon’ble J. B. Tuurston. See Note at p. 168. 

(?) Supplied by His Excellency Sir Frep. A. WELD, K.c.m.c. See 
Note at p. 169. 

(3) A Chief=Turanga. 

(*) Tane—Male. Toa—a Man, a Brave. Hawaiian: Kanaka. - 
Southern Tribes, New Zealand: Kangaka. 

(®) Aroha=Love, N. Z. Vahim, Tahitian. 

(°) =They who lie together. 

(2) —Elerimane 

(§) =His woman. 

(°?) =Male parent. 

(7°) =Female parent. 

(*1) Girl—Tamahine. 


COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY. 163 


Knglish. Fijian. New Zealand. 
Kar Ndaliga ‘Teringa 
Kye Mata Kanoé 
Face Mata Moko 
Finger INCI Sutiee ge ey eae he em Petes 
Foot EGE 9 SS eG WU ORs cee 
Hair ) Huru Huru (7) 
Hand Liiga Ringa Ringa 
Head Ulu Uboko 
Mouth Nein? een lt: ee een 
Nail TN Gn, i Satta OA ic A 
Nose Uthu Thu (3) 
Skin Kuli Kirri 
Toneue «.. ALSTING 0) |) ath aaa ST Sem er 
Tooth Seer om PS ae eer ene 
Bird Manu - Manu (*) 
Ege Yaloka Ua (*) 
Feathers gem easy Cy BM Meee re) 
Fish Ika Ika 
Fowl Toa (°) 


(+) Differs whether human or animal, and of the head or body. 

(?) Beard—Pahau. Tahitian: Rau Huru. Ram—leaf, N. Z. 

(|) =Point. 

(+) Hawaiian: Manu. 

(*) Ua also means female. 

(°) Tahitian: Moa, which also means the Dinornis bird, now 
extinct. 

Toa, N. Z., means a brave strong man. 


164 


COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY. 


English, Fijian. New Zealand, 
Alligator 2 00 > © Sle 2 
Ant Kandi ~ «>> a 
Deer 9. eS OP 
Dog Koh Kuri 
Elephant ie Nae aaa 
1 Mosquito Namu Namu 
| Pig Boach Poaka (*) 
Rat Kalayvo Kuiore 
: 
( Hhimoceros. 6 Sy - Aa ae 
} Snake Neata (2) 
‘ 
: Flower Bet 6 20 OS re 
Fruit Vua =. 2...) 5 See 
Leaf Drau Rau 
Root Waka. - \ > .. 06h) eee 
. Seed Se ne 
a) 
Tree Kau Rakau 
Wood Kau (°) Kakau (*) 
Banana Yandic 5, ee 
Cocoanut Ni ec ee ee Hi 


(1) From English ‘“ Porker ”’? > Pigs not indigenous, but ae by 
Captain Coox. 

(?) Unknown, but lizard, reptile—Ngarara. 

(°) Firewood=Mbuka. 

(*) Firewood=Wahié. 


COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY. 165 


English. Fijian. New Zealand. 
Ey ee aR ea re oe 
DE ele SO 
Oil Waiwal Hinau (*) 
Salt LASS SITE Nes tile, ea ae ae eco aer ar eaN 
em ek ee 
Gold, &e. (3) cee 
_ Arrow Peeracath Go eater PS Pn eh 
Boat Waiiga, Ndrua, Velovelo Waka (#) 
Mat Imbi oie 
Paddle Voteh Ohé 
Spear Motu Tiaha (*) 
RSE ec ee ea 
Waist-cloth Rircm Mole lie = eS, 
ese iy eee ens 
Mountain Ndela ni vanua (°) Maunga (7) 
River Uthiwai, Vurewai (§) Wai Maori (°) 


(7) Hinau also means fat. 

(2) No Native names for Metals. 

(?) =A reed. Vana=to shoot. 

(+) =A canoe. 

(*) Ornamented spear or quarter staff. 
(°) =Top of the land. Buke=a hill. 
(7) Hil=Buke or Puke. 

(8) Wai= water. 

(°)= Maori or native, indigenous, water. 


166 COMPARATIVE YOCABULARY. 


English, Fijian. New Zealand. 
Sea Tathi Moana or Wai Tal (*) 
Earth Vanua (?) Whenua (°) 
Sky Langi Rangi 
Sun Singa Ra 
Moon Vula Marama 
Star Kalokalo Whetu 
Thunder Kurukuru #88 °° | - ae 
Lightning Livaliva «sis - ss eee 
Wind Thangi Hau 
Rain Utha Uha 
Fire Buka Ahi 
Water Wai Wai (*) 
Day Sihga Ra 
Night Mbongi Poi@) 
To-day Endaiidai Tenei Ra (°) 
To-morrow Mataka, Sabongi bohgi Apopo 
Yesterday Enanoa Inenai 
Alive Bula. . » Ah Gi ceeeeeare 


(1)=Tide water. Hawaiian: Moana. 

(?) Soil=Negeli. 

(?)=Land, earth. 

(*) It was formerly “Vai” in Tahiti, and still “Wai” in 
Hawaiian. 

(Danae 

(°)=This day. 


COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY. 167 


English. Fijian. New Zealand. 
Dead Mate Mate Mate (') 
Cold Liliwa Makaridi, Makari 
Hot Katakata Wera Wera (?) 
Large Levu Nur @) 

Small Lailai Iti 

Black Loaloa Munga Monga (*) 
White ‘TEL att i a ene eee 
Come Mai Harre mai (°) 
Go Lako Harre (°) 

Eat Kana Kai 

Drink J EITC eens ee Ia Rin cima ee on ee 
Sleep Mothe Moé 

One Dua Tahi (7) 

Two Rua Dua or Rua (5) 
Three Tolu Eteru 

Four Va Ewa 


(2) Mate also means sick. 

(2) Wera also means red. 

(?) Roa=long, large, strong. 

(+) “Loa” or “Roa”=big, long, strong, high, in New Zealand 
and Hawaiian. 

(°)= Proceed hither. 

(©) Harre atu==Go away, be off with you. 

(7) The prefix ‘“ Ko” is used in counting, thus: “ Ko tahi” “ Ko 
rua” &c. 

(°) The latter is the more usual. 


a — — eS SS aS ~ 
OR ey A OE SE ee 


aa 


TT TF 


168 COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY, 

English. Fijian. New Zealand. 
Five Lima Rima ov Lima 
Six Ono Ono 
Seven Vetu Whita 
Hight Walu Waru 
Nine Thiwa Iwa 
Ten Sangavulu Tahi te kau (7) 
Twenty Rua sagavulu Erua te kau (2) 
Thirty Tolo sagavulu Kteru te kau (3) 
One hundred Drau Tahi te pou 
One thousand Undolu.. > . ) 4-463, see 
Ten thousand Omba BE is cx 


() = Onemallg: 
(?)=Two Tallies. 
()=Whree Tallies: 


———— LO 


NOTE sy Mr. THURSTON. 


The Fijians are certainly of the same stock as the Black Tribes 
of the Peninsula, although frequent crossing with people of the 
Malayan type—especially Tongans—has produced a considerable 
change in their physical appearance and in their language. This 
admixture is, as might be expected, most apparent upon the coasts. 
In the mountain parts of Vite Levu (an island about the size of 
Jamaica) the natives are, judging from description (Journal No. 5, 
p. 155) like the Semangs of Ijoh. Like those people, the Fijians 
wear small tufts or corkscrews of hair, of which they are very 


i. s . A s5 4 le) 
proud. but instead of “jamie” they call these tufts taumbi.” 


COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY. 169 


Many of the words in the Vocabulary are familiar to me. The 
majority, if not all of them, appear to me, however, of Malayan 
rather than Papuan root, and it is the dialects, grammatical struc- 
ture of language, and customs of the black race, by whatever name 
called, rather than Malayan, that I am in want of. 

Tt often occurred to me that my old friend the Australian 
“Bunyip” was nothing more thana black fellow’s exaggerated 
description of a crocodile, and now +that I see that with a shght 
change its name runs from “ Budaya” in Malay to “ Buyah” in 
Semang, I am inclined to the idea more than ever. 


NOTE sy Str F. A. WELD. 


* The Crocodile or “ Alligator” abounds in some rivers of North- 
erm Australia; tribes wandering Seuth and holdimg no further 
communication with the North may have retained the memory of 
their former cnemy. 


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