Chapter II: Part 2

It is terrible to have to add that both the women were far advanced in pregnancy.

Imam Mamat was a man of over forty years of age, of good repute with his neighbours, and I never heard any cause suggested why this quiet, elderly man of devotional habits should suddenly, without apparent reason, develop the most inhuman instincts and brutally murder a number of men, women, and children, his nearest relatives and friends. It is, however, quite possible that the man was suffering under the burden of some real or fancied wrong which, after long brooding, darkened his eyes and possessed him with this insane desire to kill.

An autopsy was performed on the murderer’s body, and the published report of the surgeon says: “I hereby certify that I this day made a _post-mortem_ examination of the body of Imam Mahomed, and find him to have died from hæmorrhage from a wound on the outer side of right thigh; the internal organs were healthy except that the membranes of the right side of brain were more adherent than usual.”

VII

THE JÔGET

Every footstep fell as lightly
As a sunbeam on the river

LONGFELLOW’S _Spanish Student_

Malays are not dancers, but they pay professional performers to dance for their amusement, and consider that “the better part” is with those who watch, at their ease, the exertions of a small class whose members are not held in the highest respect. The spectacle usually provided is strangely wanting in attraction; a couple of women shuffling their feet, and swaying their hands in gestures that are practically devoid of grace or even variety—that is the Malay dance—and it is accompanied by the beating of native drums, the striking together of two short sticks held in either hand, and the occasional boom of a metal gong. The entertainment has an undoubted fascination for Malays but it generally forms part of a theatrical performance, and for Western spectators it is immeasurably dull.

In one of the Malay States, however, Păhang, it has for years been the custom for the ruler and one or two of his near relatives to keep trained dancing girls, who perform what is called the “Jôget”—a real dance with an accompaniment of something like real music, though the orchestral instruments are very rude indeed.

The dancers, _bûdak jôget_, belong to the Raja’s household, they may even be attached to him by a closer tie; they perform seldom, only for the amusement of their lord and his friends, and the public are not admitted. Years ago I saw such a dance, and though peculiar to Păhang as far as the Malay States are concerned, it is probable that it came originally from Java; the instruments used by the orchestra and the airs played are certainly far more common in Java and Sumatra than in the Peninsula.

I had gone to Păhang on a political mission accompanied by a friend, and we were vainly courting sleep in a miserable lodging, when at 1 A.M. a message came from the Sultan inviting us to witness a _jôget_. We accepted with alacrity, and at once made our way to the _astâna_, a picturesque, well-built and commodious house on the right bank of the Păhang river. A palisade enclosed the courtyard, and the front of the house was a very large hall, open on three sides, but covered by a lofty roof of fantastic design supported on pillars. The floor of this hall was approached by three wide steps continued round the three open sides, the fourth being closed by a wooden wall which entirely shut off the private apartments save for one central door over which hung a heavy curtain. The three steps were to provide sitting accommodation according to their rank for those admitted to the _astâna_. The middle of the floor, on the night in question, was covered by a large carpet, chairs were placed for us, and the rest of the guests sat on the steps of the daïs.

When we entered, we saw, seated on the carpet, four girls, two of them about eighteen and two about eleven years old, all attractive according to Malay ideas of beauty, and all gorgeously and picturesquely clothed.

On their heads they each wore a large and curious but very pretty ornament of delicate workmanship—a sort of square flower garden where all the flowers were gold, trembling and glittering with every movement of the wearer. These ornaments were secured to the head by twisted cords of silver and gold. The girls’ hair, combed down in a fringe, was cut in a perfect oval round their foreheads and very becomingly dressed behind.

The bodices of their dresses were made of tight-fitting silk, leaving the neck and arms bare, whilst a white band of fine cambric (about 1½ inches wide), passing round the neck, came down on the front of the bodice in the form of a V, and was there fastened by a golden flower.

Round their waists were belts fastened with large and curiously worked _pinding_ or buckles of gold, so large that they reached quite across the waist. The rest of the costume consisted of a skirt of cloth of gold (not at all like the _sârong_), reaching to the ankles, while a scarf of the same material, fastened in its centre to the waist-buckle, hung down to the hem of the skirt.

All four dancers were dressed alike, except that the elder girls wore white silk bodices with a red and gold handkerchief, folded cornerwise, tied under the arms and knotted in front. The points of the handkerchief hung to the middle of the back. In the case of the two younger girls the entire dress was of one material.

On their arms the dancers wore numbers of gold bangles, and their fingers were covered with diamond rings. In their ears were fastened the diamond buttons so much affected by Malays, and indeed now by Western ladies. Their feet, of course, were bare.

We had ample time to minutely observe these details before the dance commenced, for when we came into the hall the four girls were sitting down in the usual[1] Eastern fashion, on the carpet, bending forward, their elbows resting on their thighs, and hiding the sides of their faces, which were towards the audience, with fans made of crimson and gilt paper which sparkled in the light.

On our entrance the band struck up, and our special attention was called to the orchestra, as the instruments are seldom seen in the Malay Peninsula.

There were two chief performers, one playing on a sort of harmonicon, the notes of which he struck with pieces of stick held in each hand. The other, with similar pieces of wood, played on inverted metal bowls. Both these performers seemed to have sufficiently hard work, but they played with the greatest spirit from 10 P.M. till 5 A.M.

The harmonicon is called by Malays _chĕlempong_, and the inverted bowls, which give a pleasant and musical sound like the noise of rippling water, a _gambang_. The other members of the orchestra consisted of a very small boy who played, with a very large and thick stick, on a gigantic gong—an old woman who beat a drum with two sticks, and several other boys who played on instruments like triangles called _chânang_.

All these performers, we were told with much solemnity, were artists of the first order, masters and a mistress in their craft, and if vigour of execution counts for excellence they proved the justice of the praise.

The Hall, of considerable size, capable of accommodating several hundreds of people, was only dimly lighted, but the fact that, while the audience was in semi-darkness, the light was concentrated on the performers added to the effect. Besides ourselves I question whether there were more than twenty spectators, but sitting on the top of the daïs near to the dancers it was hard to pierce the surrounding gloom.

The orchestra was placed on the left of the entrance to the Hall, that is rather to the side and rather in the background, a position evidently chosen with due regard to the feelings of the audience.

From the elaborate and vehement execution of the players, and the want of regular time in the music, I judged, and rightly, that we had entered as the overture began. During its performance, the dancers sat leaning forward, hiding their faces as I have described; but when it concluded and, without any break, the music changed into the regular rhythm for dancing, the four girls dropped their fans, raised their hands in the act of _Sèmbah_ or homage, and then began the dance by swaying their bodies and slowly waving their arms and hands in the most graceful movements, making much and effective use all the while of the scarf hanging from their belts.

Gradually raising themselves from a sitting to a kneeling posture, acting in perfect accord in every motion, then rising to their feet, they floated through a series of figures hardly to be exceeded in grace and difficulty, considering that the movements are essentially slow, the arms, hands and body being the real performers whilst the feet are scarcely noticed and for half the time not visible.

They danced five or six dances, each lasting quite half an hour, with materially different figures and time in the music. All these dances I was told were symbolical; one, of agriculture, with the tilling of the soil, the sowing of the seed, the reaping and winnowing of the grain, might easily have been guessed from the dancer’s movements. But those of the audience whom I was near enough to question were, Malay-like, unable to give me much information. Attendants stood or sat near the dancers and from time to time, as the girls tossed one thing on the floor, handed them another. Sometimes it was a fan or a mirror they held, sometimes a flower or small vessel, but oftener their hands were empty, as it is in the management of the fingers that the chief art of Malay dancers consists.

The last dance, symbolical of war, was perhaps the best, the music being much faster, almost inspiriting, and the movements of the dancers more free and even abandoned. For the latter half of the dance they each held a wand, to represent a sword, bound with three rings of burnished gold which glittered in the light like precious stones.

This nautch, which began soberly, like the others, grew to a wild revel until the dancers were, or pretended to be, possessed by the Spirit of Dancing, _hantu mĕnâri_ as they called it, and leaving the Hall for a moment to smear their fingers and faces with a fragrant oil, they returned, and the two eldest, striking at each other with their wands seemed inclined to turn the symbolical into a real battle. They were, however, after some trouble, caught by four or five women and carried forcibly out of the Hall, but not until their captors had been made to feel the weight of the magic wands. The two younger girls, who looked as if they too would like to be “possessed,” but did not know how to accomplish it, were easily caught and removed.

The band, whose strains had been increasing in wildness and in time, ceased playing on the removal of the dancers, and the nautch, which had begun at 10 P.M., was over.

The Raja, who had only appeared at 4 A.M., told me that one of the elder girls, when she became “properly possessed,” lived for months on nothing but flowers, a pretty and poetic conceit.

As we left the Astâna, and taking boat rowed slowly to the vessel waiting for us off the river’s mouth, the rising sun was driving the fog from the numbers of lovely green islets, that seemed to float like dew-drenched lotus leaves on the surface of the shallow stream.

VIII

THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

I smote him as I would a worm,
With heart as steeled, with nerve as firm;
He never woke again

WHITTIER

It was in the year 1876 that a man named Mat Aris, of no occupation and less repute, persuaded one Sâhit to take his wife Salâmah and start on a journey through the jungle to a distant country. The interest of Mat Aris in this couple was a desire to get rid of Sâhit and possess himself of the woman Salâmah, for whom he had conceived an overmastering passion.

The travellers began their journey at a spot many miles up the Perak River; their road lay along a jungle track, and so sparsely inhabited was the country they were to pass through, that they could not even find a habitation in which to pass the night. They had to look forward to many days’ journey through the primæval forest, the home of wild beasts and Sakai people, aboriginal tribes almost as shy and untamed as the elephant, the bison and the rhinoceros, with which they share the forests of the interior.

Sâhit and his wife started on their journey in the company of two brothers of Mat Aris, but meeting him the brothers returned, Mat Aris undertaking the part of escort. In the afternoon of the first day’s march a Sakai named Pah Patin met the three, and, being known to Mat Aris, that worthy ordered him to accompany them. Pah Patin did as he was told, and when evening came on, as there was no dwelling within miles, a shelter was built in the jungle wherein the night was to be passed.

It is as well to understand what a Malay jungle is like, for a good soil, well watered, in one of the hottest and dampest climates in the world, produces a forest that is not altogether the counterpart of all other forests.

The reading public, no doubt, believes that the jungle of Darkest Africa is a place of gloom, terror and difficulty without parallel. It may be so, but few of those who know it have visited Malâya, and one is apt to exaggerate one’s own troubles. Whatever gruesome peculiarities there are about the African jungle, it seems possible for large bodies of men and women to make their way through it at a fair pace without great difficulty. In that respect at least it has the advantage of the Malay forest.

To begin with there are the trees of all sizes, from the smallest shoot to the giants of the jungle, towering to a height of 150 feet. I know that is not excessive, but in this forcing climate there are an enormous number of such trees, treading on each others roots and crowding the older and feebler out of existence. These are nothing, they afford a pleasant shade from the pitiless rays of the sun, and though this mitigated light cannot by any stretch of imagination be called darkness, it is possible to take off your hat without fear of sunstroke. If it were only for the trees jungle walking would be pleasant enough.

Under them, however, there is an undergrowth so thick as to beggar description. Every conceivable kind of palm, of bush, of creeper, flourishes there with a luxuriance, with a prodigality of vegetable life, that shows how richly Nature deserves her title of Mother. It is a curious fact, remarked by every one who has been brought in contact with the Malay forest, that a very large number of its shrubs, many of its palms, and most of its creepers are armed with spikes of various length, but all of about equal sharpness. Some are so formidable that the thickest skinned beasts avoid contact with them, and no human apparel has been devised, short of armour, that will resist their powers of penetration and destruction. Under the creepers lie fallen trees, and the ground is covered with ferns, rank grasses, and what is generally termed undergrowth, so thick that the soil is often entirely hidden. It may be added as a minor but unpleasant detail that this tangle of vegetation harbours every species of crawling, jumping, and flying unpleasantness; myriads of leeches that work their way through stockings and garments of any but the closest texture; centipedes, scorpions, wasps, and stinging flies, caterpillars that thrust their hairs into the skin and leave them there to cause intolerable irritation, snakes poisonous and otherwise, ants with the most murderous proclivities, and last, but not least, mosquitoes that, when they find a human being, make the most of their opportunity. I have not exhausted the catalogue of pests, but only given a sample of what any traveller will meet in a day’s journey through a Malay jungle. There is a wasp called “the reminder,” a thorn called “Kite’s talons,” and an ant known as the “fire ant.” The names are as apt as they are suggestive.

To force a way through such a place is an impossibility, even on all fours it could not be crawled through, the only means of progress is by cutting a path.

No one attempts to walk through virgin forest unless he be in pursuit of game, or has some special object and the means to clear his way. All Malay jungle is not as thick as that I have described, and as the beasts sought by the sportsman naturally frequent the more open places, tracking is possible, though severe enough work even at the slow rate of progress necessary to enable the pursuers to approach the quarry without being seen or heard.

The lower and more swampy the country the thicker the undergrowth, and I have often noticed that, where a river flows between low banks clothed with virgin forest, it would be almost impossible for even a strong swimmer to force his way out of the water on to the land through the thickly interlaced tangle of branches, rattans, and other thorny creepers that stretch their uninviting arms from the bank far over the water of the stream.

It will naturally be asked how travellers make their way through jungle such as I have described. The reply is that there are existing tracks (not worthy of the name of footpaths) which have been used for ages, originally no doubt formed by the passing and repassing of wild beasts, then adopted by the Sakais, and lastly by Malays. In other cases similar means of passage have been formed by driving tame elephants through the forest from place to place. For the pedestrian, especially if he be clad in the garments and boots of western civilisation, progress through the succession of holes filled with water and mud which marks the track of elephants is neither rapid nor pleasant.

That is the jungle of daylight.

When once the sun has set darkness falls upon everything within the forest, and it is a darkness so absolute as to give to wide-open eyes the impression of blindness. Those who have been so unfortunate as to be benighted in a Malay jungle without torches or lanterns know that there is nothing to be done but to sit down and wait for day.

Such were the surroundings in which Sâhit and his wife found themselves compelled to spend a night in the company of Mat Aris and his Sakai acquaintance.

Mat Aris had a house in this neighbourhood, and on the day following the events already narrated a Malay went to the Headman of his village and said there was a woman in the house of Mat Aris sobbing and saying her husband had been murdered. The Headman went to the place and saw Mat Aris was there and a woman with him. Mat Aris had a reputation which probably induced this Headman not to attempt to interfere with him further than to keep a watch on his proceedings.

In places where there are no roads, and often when they do exist, Malays live on or close by the bank of a river, and, on the following day, the Headman observed Mat Aris and the woman in a boat going down the stream, here a succession of rapids and very difficult to navigate. The Headman followed by a jungle track, and getting near to a place called Kôta Tampan, the first police station, he hurried on and gave the information he possessed.

When Mat Aris arrived at Kôta Tampan he landed, and was at once arrested by the native sergeant in charge of the station, who accused him of murdering Sâhit. Mat Aris denied the charge, but the woman said her name was Salâmah, and the sergeant said he must take them both to his Divisional Headquarters at Kuala Kangsar, distant thirty miles or more by river. Accordingly the sergeant and some police entered the boat and a start was made for Kuala Kangsar. It shortly appeared that the police, who were natives of India, were not very skilful in the management of the boat, and, as Mat Aris offered his services to steer and there was no doubt of his ability, this important post was given to him. Choosing a convenient place where the stream was both deep and rapid, Mat Aris upset the boat and threw every one into the water. Then seizing the woman, he swam with her to the opposite bank and they both disappeared. The police had enough to do, hampered by their uniforms, to get out of the river with their lives.

For the next eight years Mat Aris eluded all attempts at capture. He lived in the jungle beyond the jurisdiction of the Perak Government, and, with his brothers, became the terror of the neighbourhood, levying black mail on all who passed his way. Mat Aris was the ringleader, and even more serious crimes were laid at his door.

The woman Salâmah was known to be living with Mat Aris as his wife, and it was also known that she had a child by him. Of Sâhit nothing more was seen or heard.

Meanwhile the Government of Perak had established a station in the neighbourhood of the spot where Sâhit had disappeared, and complaints of the lawless proceedings of Mat Aris were constantly made to the officer in charge of it, but he was helpless, for the outlaw was beyond his reach.

Eight years is, however, a long time, especially to an Eastern, and travellers worth robbing having grown scarce, Mat Aris, in the consciousness of his own rectitude, went to the Perak officer and asked for work. That mistaken step resulted in his arrest on the strength of the warrant issued eight years before.

This time the prisoner was conveyed in safety to Kuala Kangsar, where he was duly tried.

It is one thing to give information against a man who is free, willing, and able to resent it, and quite a different thing to say what you know when that man is in the toils. There was a witness who was likely to know what had happened to Sâhit, and that was Pah Patin the Sakai, but Pah Patin did not speak, and Mat Aris and Salâmah were the only other people who knew what he could say. At least that appeared to be so, for who else would be likely to know what happened at night in the depths of the jungle miles from the nearest habitation?

As for Salâmah, like the Sabine women, she seemed to have reconciled herself to her captor.

But the strange part of this story is that, impossible as it may seem, there was a witness who saw what took place in that hut in the forest, whither the unsuspecting Sâhit had been lured with his wife under the escort of Mat Aris.

That witness was a Sakai man who had been collecting _gĕtah_ (gutta-percha), and, attracted by the firelight, noiselessly approached the hut and, whilst wondering at the unusual sight of these strangers sleeping in his wild and lonely jungle, he saw Mat Aris get up and stab to death the man, who stood between him and the woman he had determined to possess.

The Sakai saw more than that, but when once he had disclosed what he knew, Pah Patin was found and induced to tell his tale, and other Sakais completed the narrative.

It will be remembered that Sâhit and his wife, Mat Aris and the Sakai Pah Patin had built a shelter where they proposed to spend the night. A fire was lighted, food was cooked and eaten, and the four lay down to sleep. On one side of the fire Mat Aris, next him Salâmah, and then Sâhit; on the other was the Sakai.

The man and his wife slept, the other Malay pretended to sleep, and the Sakai fell into that state which passes for sleep with creatures that are always on the alert for possible danger.

Half an hour later Mat Aris rose up softly and with a _kris_ stabbed Sâhit in the throat. The wretched man staggered to his feet, fell and tried to struggle up again when Mat Aris shouted to the Sakai to strike him or he would kill him also. Pah Patin obeyed, and hit the wounded man on the head with a stick. “Then,” said Pah Patin when at last he told the story, “there was a little life in him, but he never moved after I struck him.”

The woman rushed out of the hut, but Mat Aris followed her and brought her back to the mat by the body of the murdered man, and there they slept together, the Sakai returning to his place on the other side of the fire. The night was young then.

Before daylight Pah Patin left Mat Aris and Salâmah still sleeping by the corpse, and by order of Mat Aris fetched two more Sakais, and these three buried Sâhit by the bank of the river in the presence of Mat Aris and the woman.

Years afterwards, when the details were known, an attempt was made to find the body, but it failed; decomposition in this climate is rapid, even bones disappear, and the river had many times flooded its banks, trees had gone and others grown, the landmarks were no longer the same, and possibly the exact site of the grave was missed.

IX

LÂTAH

Ofttimes he falleth into the fire and oft into the water

MATTHEW xvii. 14

In the spring of 1892 I was privileged, by the kindness of a friend and the courtesy of Dr. Luys, to visit the Hospital _de la Charité_ in Paris, where I witnessed some very remarkable and interesting experiments in suggestion. There were patients undergoing successful treatment for nervous disorders where the disease was in process of gradual relief by passing from the afflicted person to a medium without injury to the latter; there was the strange power of hypnotising, influencing and awakening certain _sujets_ whose nervous organisations seem to be specially susceptible, and there was the astonishing influence of the magnet over these same _sujets_ when already hypnotised. There is something more than usually uncanny in the sight of a person filled with an inexplicable and unnatural delight in the contemplation of the positive end of a magnet, and when the negative end is suddenly turned towards him, to see him instantly fall down unconscious as though struck by lightning.

The _sujets_ (there were two of them, a man and a woman) described the appearance of the positive end of the magnet as producing a beautiful blue flame about a foot high, so exquisite in colour and beauty that it transported them with delight. As to the negative end, they reluctantly explained, in hesitating words and with every appearance of dread, that there also was a flame, but a red one of fearful and sinister import.

I was deeply interested in these “manifestations,” both for their own strangeness and because I had in the Malay Peninsula seen equally extraordinary proceedings of a somewhat similar kind.

Amongst Malays there is a well-known disease (I use the word for want of a better) called _lâtah_; it is far more common at certain places than at others, and amongst certain divisions of the great Malay family. Thus while there is generally one or more _ôrang lâtah_ to be found in every _kampong_ in Krian, where the Malays are mostly from Kĕdah, in other parts of Perak it is rare to ever meet a _lâtah_ person. Again, speaking generally, the disease seems to be more common amongst the people of Amboina, in Netherlands India, than those of Java, Sumatra or the Malay Peninsula. In both cases heredity is probably accountable for the result, whatever may have been the original cause to produce the affliction in certain places more than in others. I can only speak of my own experience and what I have personally seen, for no English authority appears to have studied the matter or attempted to either observe _lâtah_ people, diagnose the disease (if it is one), search for its cause or attempt to cure it. I can vouch for facts but nothing more.

In 1874 I was sent in H.M.S. _Hart_ to reside with the Sultan of Selangor. Though His Highness’s personal record was one of which he might be proud, for he was said to have killed ninety-nine men (_sa’ râtus kûrang sâtu_) with his own hand, his State was not altogether a happy one, for it had been the fighting-ground of several ambitious young Rajas for some years. An unusually hideous piracy, personally conducted by one of the Sultan’s own sons, and committed on a Malacca trading vessel, had necessitated a visit from the China fleet, and when the perpetrators, or those who after due inquiry appeared to be the perpetrators, had been executed (the Sultan lending his own _kris_ for the ceremony), I was sent to see that these “boyish amusements,” as His Highness called them, were not repeated. The place where the Sultan then lived was hardly a desirable residence, even from a Malay point of view, and it has for years now been almost deserted. _Bandar Tĕrmâsa_, as it was grandiloquently styled, was a collection of huts on a mud flat enclosed between the Langat and Jugra rivers. It was only seven miles from the sea, and at high tide most of the place was under water.

With me there went twenty-five Malay police from Malacca, and we lived all together in an old stockade on the bank of the Langat river. Whether it was the mosquitoes, which for numbers and venom could not be matched, or whether it was the evil reputation of the place for deeds of violence is needless to inquire, but the police were seized with panic and had to be replaced by another batch from Singapore, selected not so much on account of their virtues as their so-called vices. The exchange was satisfactory, for whatever sins they committed they showed no signs of panic.

Later on I was encouraged by the statement that Bandar Tĕrmâsa, for all its unpromising appearance, was a place for _men_, where those who had a difference settled it promptly with the _kris_, and cowards who came there either found their courage or departed. A story that amused the gossips was that, as a badly wounded man was carried from the duelling field past the palisade which enclosed the Sultan’s house, His Highness had asked, through the bars, what was the matter, and, being told, had laconically remarked, “If he is wounded, doctor him; if he is dead, bury him.”

During my residence in the place a lady, for jealousy, stabbed a man of considerable note thirteen times with his own dagger, and sent the next morning to know whether I would like to purchase it, as she did not much fancy the weapon. The man was not killed, and made no complaint. Another lady, for a similar reason, visited our stockade one night, pushed the sentry on one side, and, finding the man she wanted, attempted to stab him with a long _kris_ she had brought for that purpose.

That was then the state of society in Bandar Tĕrmâsa.

I have said we lived all together in a stockade. It was a very rude structure with log walls about six feet thick and eight feet high, a mud floor, a thatch roof, and no doors. Outside it was a high watch-tower of the same materials, but the ladder to it had fallen down. Of roads there were none, but a mud path ran through the stockade from river bank to village, distant some 300 yards. My own accommodation was a cot borrowed from the _Hart_ and slung between two posts, while the men slept on the walls of the stockade.

The place had drawbacks other than mosquitoes, for the public path ran through it, the tide at high water completely covered the floor, and the log walls were full of snakes. The state of the surroundings will best be understood when I say that during the many months I lived there I did not wear boots outside the stockade, because there was nothing to walk upon but deep mud, and that the only water fit to use was contained in a well or pond a quarter of a mile off, to which I walked every day to bathe.

With the second batch of police had come an European inspector, and he and I were the only white men in the country.

Amongst the twenty-five police were two men of the name of Kâsim; they were both natives of Amboina, but very different in disposition, and they were known among their comrades as Kâsim _Bĕsar_ and Kâsim _Kĕchil_—that is Kâsim Major and Kâsim Minor.

Kâsim Major was a quiet, reserved, silent man of about twenty-five, and I afterwards realised that he had a somewhat violent temper when roused. Kâsim Minor, on the contrary, was a smiling, talkative, happy, and pleasant-looking young fellow of about twenty. They were not related to each other in any way.

I used often to be away on the coast and up river, and on my return from one of these expeditions I noticed the men teasing Kâsim Minor, and saw at once that he was _lâtah_. I questioned the inspector, and he told me that during my absence he had one day been away on duty for some hours, and when he returned, about 4 P.M., he saw Kâsim Minor up a coco-nut tree just outside the stockade. On asking him what he was doing there, he replied he could not come down because there was a snake at the bottom of the tree. In reality there was a bit of rattan tied round the tree, and, this being removed, Kâsim came down.

Now, it is no easy matter to climb a coco-nut tree; it requires a special training to do it at all, and Kâsim did not possess it. But the inspector ascertained that the other police had found out by accident that their comrade was _lâtah_, that they had ordered him to climb the tree, which he had at once done, and that then, out of sheer devilry, some one had taken a bit of rattan, said, “Do you see this snake? I will tie it round the tree, and then you can’t come down,” and so left him from 10 A.M. till the afternoon, when the inspector returned and released him.

The time of Kâsim’s penance was probably greatly exaggerated, but that is how the story was told to me, and of all that follows I was an eye-witness.

I made Kâsim Minor my orderly, and as he was constantly with me I had better opportunities of studying his peculiarities. About this time also I learnt that Kâsim Major was also _lâtah_.

Speaking generally, it was only necessary for any one to attract the attention of either of these men by the simplest means, holding up a finger, calling them by name in a rather pointed way, touching them or even, when close by, to look them hard in the face, and instantly they appeared to lose all control of themselves and would do, not only whatever they were told to do, but whatever was suggested by a sign.

I have seen many _lâtah_ people, male and female, but never any quite like these two, none so susceptible to outside influence, so ready to blindly obey a word or a sign.

The kindly disposition of Kâsim Minor made him quite harmless, but the other Kâsim was rather a dangerous subject to play tricks with, as I will presently explain.

The _lâtah_ man or woman usually met with, if suddenly startled, by a touch, a noise, or the sight of something unexpected, will not only show all the signs of a very nervous person but almost invariably will fire off a volley of expressions more or less obscene, having no reference at all to the circumstance which has suddenly aroused attention. As a rule it is necessary to _startle_ these people before they will say or do anything to show that they are differently constituted to their neighbours, and when they have betrayed themselves either by word or deed their instinct is to get away as quickly as possible. Children and even grown-up people cannot always resist the pleasure of “bating” a _lâtah_ person; for one reason because it is so exceedingly easy, for another because they are inclined on the spur of the moment to do ludicrous things or say something they would under ordinary circumstances be ashamed of. _Almost_ invariably _lâtah_ people of this class (and it is by far the most common one) are very good humoured and never seem to think of resenting the liberty taken with their infirmity. If by word or deed they commit themselves (and that is not uncommon) they either run away, or appear to be unconscious of having said or done anything unusual (this however is rare), or they simply say, “I am _lâtah_,” as a full explanation and excuse.

If any one present accidentally drops something on the floor, if a lizard falls from the roof on to or near a _lâtah_ person, if the wind blows the shutter of a window to with a bang, a _lâtah_ person of the class I speak of will probably find it necessary to at least say something not usually heard in polite society. Of this class by far the majority are women.

I have never seen a _lâtah_ boy or girl, but I know they are to be found, though the disease certainly becomes more evident as the subject grows older.

It must be understood that except when under influence, when actually showing the evidences of this strange peculiarity, _lâtah_ people are undistinguishable from others. It is sufficient proof of this that amongst my twenty-five police there should have been two men more completely _lâtah_ than any I have seen before or since.

I took occasion to carefully observe the two Kâsims. It was impossible to always prevent their companions teasing them, especially in a place where there was absolutely no form of amusement and all the conditions of life were as unpleasant as they well could be, but no harm was ever done, and I am satisfied that while influence was in any way exercised over the _lâtah_ man he was not conscious of his own actions, and directly it was removed he became his reasoning other self, and the utmost that remained on his mind, or came to him with the recovery of his own will, was that he might have done something foolish.

If the attention of either of these men was arrested, as I have said by word, sign, or a meaning glance, from that moment until the influence was removed, the _lâtah_ man would do whatever he was told or signed to do without hesitation, whether the act signified were difficult, dangerous, or painful. When once under this influence any one present could give the order and the _lâtah_ man would immediately obey it; not only that, but even at some distance (as in the coco-nut tree incident), he appeared to be equally subject to the will imposed on his actions.

A curious thing about both these men was that, having attracted the attention of either, if you said, “Kâsim, go and hit that man,” he would invariably repeat what was said, word for word, including his own name, while he carried out the order. When the person hit turned on him, Kâsim would say, “It was not I who hit you, but that man who ordered me.”

I have seen Kâsim the younger, when the man influencing him put his own finger in his mouth and pretended to bite it, imitate the action but really bite his finger and bite it hard. Similarly I have seen him, in imitation and without a word being said, take a lighted brand from the fire, and he would have put it in his mouth if the experiment had been carried so far. Some one told him one day to jump into the river, and he did not get out again till he had swum nearly two hundred yards, for the stream was both broad and deep, with a terrible current, and infested by crocodiles. If at any moment you called out “_Tôlong_ Kâsim” (“help! Kâsim”), the instant he heard it he would jump up and crying “_Tôlong_ Kâsim,” dash straight to you over all obstacles. If then you had put a weapon in his hand and told him to slay any one within reach I have not the slightest doubt he would have done it without hesitation.

I have said there was a ladderless watch-tower outside the stockade. The police wanted firewood, they were not allowed to burn the logs forming our walls, but at the top of the watch-tower there were also log walls that they were told they could burn. They were lazy, however, and did not see how they were going to get up, so they ordered Kâsim the younger to climb up, which he did as he had climbed the coco-nut tree, and, when once there, they told him to throw down logs until they thought they had enough. I watched that operation, and the feverish haste with which the man swarmed up one of the supports, gained the platform of the tower, and threw down huge logs as though his life depended on it, was rather remarkable. I gave orders that the man’s infirmity was not to be used for this purpose again, but in my absence I know that when more firewood was wanted Kâsim went up to the watch-tower for it until that supply was exhausted.

The path from the stockade to the village was in sight of the stockade throughout its length, and one day I noticed Kâsim Minor, as he walked leisurely down this mud embankment, stop every now and then and behave in a peculiar fashion as though he were having conversation with the frogs, snakes and other denizens of the ditches that bordered the path. When he had gone half way he stopped and peeped up into the branches of a small tree on the road side, then he seemed to be striking blows at an invisible enemy, ran to the ditch and began throwing lump after lump of hard mud into the tree. I had not seen this phase of his peculiarities before and could not make it out, but suddenly his arms went about his head like the sails of a windmill, and I realised that his enemies were bees or hornets, and that he was getting a good deal the worst of an unequal fight. I sent some of the men to fetch him back and found he had been rather badly stung, and when I asked him why he attacked the nest he said his attention was caught by things flying out of the tree and he was impelled to throw at them.

I understood that the hornets flying out of the nest appeared to be thrown at him, and he could not help imitating what he saw in the best way he could, and so he took what was nearest his hand and sent it flying back.

Kâsim the elder was quite as susceptible as his namesake, but his comrades were a little shy of provoking him as they soon realised that his temper made the amusement dangerous. One day they must have been teasing him, and, when he was allowed to recover his own will, I suppose their laughter made it evident to him that he had made himself ridiculous, for he suddenly ran to the arm-rack, and seizing a sword bayonet made for his tormentors with such evident intention to use it that they precipitately fled, and in a few seconds were making very good time across the swamp with Kâsim and the drawn sword far too close to be pleasant. I had some difficulty in persuading him to abandon his purpose, but after that and a lecture his comrades did not greatly bother him.

I remember, however, that on another occasion we had secured and erected a long thin spar to serve as a flagstaff, but the halyard jammed and it seemed necessary to lower the spar when some one called out to Kâsim the elder to climb up it. Before I could interfere, he had gone up two-thirds of the height, and he only came down reluctantly. Had he gone a few feet higher the pole would inevitably have snapped and he would have had a severe fall.

About this time a friend came and shared my loneliness for a fortnight. He had had experience of _lâtah_ people before, but the two Kâsims were rather a revelation, and he was perhaps inclined to doubt what I told him they could be made to do. One morning we were bathing as usual at the pond, and Kâsim the younger was in attendance carrying the towels, &c.

The bath was over, and we were all three standing on the bank, when my friend said to Kâsim:

“_Mâri, kîta tĕrjun_” (come, let us jump in), at the same time feigning to jump. Kâsim instantly jumped into the pond, disappeared, came up spluttering, and having scrambled out, said: “_Itu tîdak baik, Tûan_” (that is not good of you, sir).

My friend said, “Why, I did nothing, I only said let us jump in and went like this,” repeating his previous action, when Kâsim immediately repeated his plunge, and we dragged him from the water looking like a retriever.

When I was first ordered to Selangor, I thought it possible that some sort of furniture might be useful, and I took up a few chairs and other things, including a large roll of what is known as Calcutta matting. The things were useless in a place where the mud floor was often under water twice during twenty-four hours, and they lay piled in a corner of the stockade, and whenever a Malay of distinction came to see me for whom it was necessary to find a chair, it was advisable to see that the seat was not already occupied by a snake. The roll of matting, about four feet high and two-and-a-half feet in diameter naturally remained unopened.

Every night, owing to the myriads of mosquitoes, a large bonfire was lit in the middle of the stockade, for only in the smoke of that fire was it possible to eat one’s dinner. One night some Malays from the village had come in, and the police were trying to amuse them and forget their own miseries by dancing and singing round the fire. Under such circumstances Malays have a happy knack of making the best of things, they laugh easily and often, and as I have said elsewhere, they have a strong sense of humour if not always of a very refined description. Some one had introduced one of the Kâsims, in his character of an _ôrang lâtah_, for the benefit of the strangers, and one of the men was inspired to fetch the roll of matting, and solemnly presenting it to Kâsim the younger, said, “Kâsim, here is your wife.”

Even now I do not forget the smile of beatitude and satisfaction with which Kâsim Minor regarded that undesirable and figureless bundle. Breathing the words in a low voice, almost sighing to himself, “Kâsim, here is your wife,” he embraced the matting with great fervour, constantly repeating “My wife! my wife!” Some one said, “Kiss her!” and he kissed her—repeatedly kissed her. Then by another inspiration (I do not say from whence), some one brought up the other Kâsim, and introducing him to the other side of the roll of matting, said, also very quietly, “Kâsim, this is _your_ wife!” and Kâsim the elder accepted the providential appearance of his greatly-desired spouse, and embraced her with not less fervour than his namesake and rival.

It was evident that neither intended to give up the lady to the other, and as each tried to monopolise her charms a struggle began between them to obtain complete possession, during which the audience, almost frantic with delight, urged the actors in this drama to manifest their affection to the lady of their choice. In the midst of this clamour the Kâsims and their joint spouse fell down, and as they nearly rolled into the fire and seemed disinclined even then to abandon the lady, she was taken away and put back in her corner with the chairs and snakes.

It is a detail, which I only add because some readers hunger for detail, that neither of the Kâsims possessed a wife.

I do not pretend to offer any explanation of the cause of this state of mind which Malays call _lâtah_. I imagine it is a nervous disease affecting the brain but not the body.

I have never met a medical man who has interested himself in the matter, and I cannot say whether the disease, if it be one, is curable or not—I should doubt it.

I have somewhere read that individuals similarly affected are found amongst the Canadian lumber-men.

X

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

Le bonheur de saigner sur le cœur d’un ami

PAUL VERLAINE

There was a woman of Kelantan named Siti Maämih; she was born of the people, neither good nor beautiful, nor attractive, nor even young, as youth goes in the East, but she had chosen to ally herself to a white man whom I will call Grant.

I know nothing of these two, but that he had work far away in a Malay jungle and she shared his loneliness, herself a stranger in that country. It was apparently an arrangement formed for mutual advantage, like many others of a more permanent character. If the connection began without any semblance of romance, it more than satisfied the expectations of the contracting parties, and when the moment of trial came the highest affection and the most sacred bond could hardly have suggested a greater sacrifice than this woman offered.

Whilst these two were living their unattractive lives there came difficulties between white man and brown—not specially between this white man and any with a darker skin: the quarrel was between white authority and Malay resentment of interference. Grant was not even remotely connected with the matter, but he was white, and under such circumstances a want of discrimination is not uncommon. There followed what is known as “a state of reprisals.” Uncivilised people, who do not understand fine distinctions in such matters, called it war. The disturbance was, however, comparatively local, Grant’s immediate neighbourhood did not seem affected, and he was probably unconcerned. Therefore he went about his work and took no special precaution, fearing no attack.

But his hut was isolated, there was only one other white man anywhere near him, no police within miles, and Maämih, who understood Malays better than her protector, was on the watch for trouble.

To expect is, sometimes, to go half way to meet, and the trouble came quickly.

One morning two Malays appeared at Grant’s house, and, having given some trivial excuse for their presence and looked about the premises, took their departure. There was nothing unusual in that, and only a very nervous person would have seen in so simple an event any cause for alarm. But even ere this, prudence would have told most white men under similar circumstances that it would be well to see to their arms and keep them handy. Grant, however, took no precautions, as he had probably convinced himself that none were necessary; as for arms, he does not appear to have had any.

That morning, or it may have been the evening before, three large boats and two small ones arrived in the river close by, but kept out of sight of Grant’s hut, and he probably did not know they were there. They belonged to a minor chief who had no connection with the Malays then in arms.

The day wore on, Grant had been out all morning looking after his work, he had returned to breakfast, been out again, and now he was back and had thrown himself down to rest, glad to get under shelter from the oppressive heat. He was a busy man and his work took him out of doors, but though he had been about all day he had seen and heard nothing to arouse his suspicions.