Among Malay Pirates : a Tale of Adventure and Peril Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  Four or five days later the chief was allowed to get up and to walkquietly up and down the deck, and a week afterwards the doctor said,"You can go now, chief, if you desire it; but you must be contentto keep quiet for another couple of months, and not make any greatexertions or move quickly. How long will it take you to go up the riverto your home?"

  "Six days' easy paddling."

  "Well, that is in your favor; but do not travel fast. Take it quietly,and be as long as you can on the voyage--lying in a canoe is as good arest as you can take."

  "Thank you, Doctor, I will obey your instructions. You have all beenvery kind to me, and a Malay chief never forgets benefits. I have beenhostile to the white men, but now I see I have been mistaken, and thatyou are good and kind. Is it true that your boat is going up the river?Soh Hay tells me that it is so."

  "Yes; one of the chiefs, Sehi Pandash, wishes to place himself under ourprotection, and he has sent to ask that the ship might go up and fireher big guns, that the tribes round may see that he has strong friendswho can help him."

  "It is two days' rowing up the river to my place from his, and when youare there I shall come down to see you. Sehi is not a good chief; hequarrels with his neighbors, and shelters their slaves who run away tohim; he is not a good man."

  "Well, we shall all be glad to see you, chief, and I hope that you willbring your daughter with you. She has won all our hearts, and we shallmiss her sadly."

  "I will bring her if I can do so safely," the chief said gravely; "butI am no friends with Sehi; he stops my trade as it comes down the river,and takes payment for all goods that pass down. It is because he knowsthat many of us are angered that he wishes to put himself under yourprotection. I think that you do not do well to aid so bad a fellow."

  "We did not know that he was a bad fellow, chief. The best plan will befor you and the other chiefs who are aggrieved to send down complaintsagainst him, or to come down yourselves when we are up there and talkit over with our Captain, who will doubtless impress upon Sehi thenecessity for abstaining from such practices, and that he cannot expectaid from us if he embroils himself with his neighbors by interferingwith their trade. Is he strong?"

  "He has many war prahus, which sometimes come down to the sea and returnwith plunder, either collected from the cultivators near the coast orfrom trading ships captured and burnt."

  "I will mention what you tell me to the Captain, and it will preparehim to listen to any complaint that may be made to him. But you mustremember that he is only acting under the orders of the Governor of theStraits Settlements, and must refer all important matters to him."

  "I will come when you are there," Hassan said gravely. "If nothing isdone, there will be war."

  There was general regret on board the Serpent when the little princesssaid goodby to all her friends and went down the accommodation ladder tothe boat with her father. The chief had said but little to the two youngmidshipmen, for he saw that they preferred that the matter should not bealluded to, but he held their hands at parting, and said:

  "I shall see you again before long; but if at any time you shouldwant me, I will come, even if your summons reach me in the middle of abattle."

  "It is such nonsense, Doctor," Harry said, as the boat pushed off, "tohave so much made of such a thing as jumping into the water. If one hadbeen alone, and had tried to save a man or a woman, in such a state offunk that there was a good chance of their throwing their arms roundyour neck and pulling you down with them, there might be something init, though everyone takes his chance of that when he jumps in to saveanyone from drowning; but with a little child, and two of us to do it,and the ship close at hand, it was not worth thinking of for a moment."

  "No, Parkhurst, from your point of view the thing was not, as you say,worth giving a thought to; but, you see, that is not the point of viewof the chief. To him it is nothing whether your exploit was a gallantone or not, or whether you ran any danger; the point simply is, hischild would have been drowned had you not seen her and fished her out,and that it is to you that he owes her life. I think you have reason tocongratulate yourselves on having made a friend who may be very usefulto you. It may be that there will be trouble up the river; and if so, hemight possibly be of real service to you. But in any case he may be ableto give you some good hunting and fishing, and show you things that youwould never have had an opportunity of seeing without his friendship andassistance."

  "I did not think of that, Doctor; yes, that would certainly be a greatthing."

  "I can assure you I look at it in that light myself, Parkhurst, and Iam looking forward to paying him a visit, as, under his protection, Ishould get opportunities of collecting which I could never have in theordinary way; for, unless they are greatly maligned, one could not trustone's self among the Malays without some special protection."

  "But they are not savages, Doctor. Hassan is a perfect gentleman inmanner, and in that silk jacket of his and handsome sarong he reallylooks like a prince. I could not help thinking that all of us lookedpoor creatures by his side."

  "They certainly cannot be called savages, though from our point ofview many of their customs are of a very savage nature. Piracy is verygeneral among those living on the seacoast or on the great rivers; butit must be remembered that it is not so very many centuries ago that atoll was demanded of all passersby by the barons having castles onthe Rhine and other navigable rivers; the crews of wrecked ships wereplundered on every coast of Europe, our own included, not so very longago; and in the days of Elizabeth, Drake and Hawkins were regarded bythe Spaniards as pirates of the worst class, and I fear that there was agood deal of justice in the accusation. But the Malays are people with ahistory; they believe themselves that they were the original inhabitantsof the island of Sumatra; however, it is certain that in the twelfthcentury they had extended their rule over the whole of that island andmany of its neighbors, and in the thirteenth had established themselveson this peninsula and had founded an empire extending over the greaterpart of the islands down to the coast of Australia. They had by thistime acquired the civilization of India, and their sultans were powerfulmonarchs. They carried on a great trade with China, Hindoostan, andSiam, and their maritime code was regulated and confirmed, as early as1276, by Mohammed Shah."

  "How is it that they have come to such grief, Doctor?"

  "Principally by the fact that they had the feudal, or you may call itthe tribal, system. Each petty chief and his followers made war on hisneighbors if he was strong enough; and as some tribes conquered others,the empire became split up into an indefinite number of clans, whosechiefs paid but a very nominal allegiance to the sultan. So islandsbroke off from the empire until it had practically ceased to exist, andthe Malays were a people united only by similar customs and language,but in no other respect, and were, therefore, able to offer but slightresistance on the arrival of the Dutch and Portuguese in these regions.Still, the upper classes preserve the memory of their former greatness.The people are intelligent, and most of the trade in this part ofthe world is carried on by them. They are enterprising, and ready toemigrate if they see a chance of improving their fortunes. You know wesaw many of them at the Cape when we touched there. Nominally they areMohammedans in religion; but they do not strictly observe the ordinancesof the Koran, and their Mohammedanism is mixed up with traces of theiroriginal religion."

  "Ah, that explains why the chief's name was Hassan. I wondered that aMalay should have a Mohammedan name. They are not much like Arabs infigure. Of course, Hassan is a very fine looking man, and some of theother chiefs we saw at Penang were so; but most of them are shorter thanwe are, and very ugly."

  "Yes, in figure and some other points they much resemble the Burmese,who are probably blood relations of theirs. The chiefs are finer men, asyou will always find in the case in savage or semi savage peoples, for,of course, they have the pick of the women, and naturally choose thebest looking. Their food, too, is better and their work less rough thanthat of the p
eople at large.

  "The sons and daughters of the chiefs naturally intermarry, and theresult is that in most cases you will find the upper classes taller,better formed, lighter in color, and of greater intelligence than therest of the people. This would be specially the case in a trading peoplelike the Malays; their ships would bring over girls purchased in India,just as the ruling classes in Turkey used to obtain their wives fromCircassia; and this, no doubt, has helped to modify the original Malaytype."

  "Thank you, Doctor; I think I shall like the Malays now I know somethingabout them. Is it true that they are so treacherous?"

  "I don't know, Parkhurst; doubtless they are treacherous in their wars;that is to say that they consider any means fair to deceive an enemy;but I do not think that they are so, beyond that. The Dutch have neverhad any very great difficulty with them, nor have we in the portionof the peninsula where we have established our rule. Of course, I knowlittle about them myself, as I have only been out here a few months; butI am told that as traders they can be trusted, and that the word of aMalay chief can be taken with absolute confidence. Of course, among themajority of the people of the peninsula we are regarded with jealousyand hostility--they dread that we should extend our dominion over them,and it is not surprising that they should by every means in their powerstrive to prevent our coming far inland. The chiefs on the rivers are,as a rule, specially hostile.

  "In the first place, because their towns and villages are moreaccessible to us, and they know more of our power than those dwellingin the hill country; and, secondly, because they depend largely upon therevenue that they derive from taxing all goods passing up and down, andwhich they not unreasonably think they might lose if we were to becomeparamount. No doubt there is much that Hassan said of Sehi that is trueand is applicable to other chiefs who have placed themselves under ourprotection--namely, that they have so injured trade by their exactionsas to incur the hostility of their neighbors. Of course, I am notspeaking of such men as the Rajahs of Johore and Perac, who areenlightened men, and have seen the benefits to be derived fromintercourse with us. Their people are agriculturists, and they arereally on a par with the protected states in India.

  "There is a great future before the country; gold is found in many ofthe rivers, tin is probably more abundant than in any other part of theworld, and the exports are now very large; there are immense quantitiesof valuable timber, such as teak, sandalwood, and ebony. The climate is,except on the low land near the rivers, very healthy; nutmegs, cloves,and other spices can be grown there, and indigo, chocolate, pepper,opium, the sugarcane, coffee, and cotton, are all successfullycultivated. Some day, probably, the whole peninsula will fall under ourprotection, and when the constant tribal feuds are put a stop to, theforests cleared, and the ground cultivated, as is the case in our ownsettlement of Malacca, it will be found one of the most valuable of ourpossessions. Any amount of labor can be obtained from China, and it isprobable that the races who inhabit the mountainous districts, who aresaid to be industrious and peaceable, will also readily adapt themselvesto the changed conditions. They are not Malays like the people of thelowlands, but are a black race with curly wool, like the natives ofAfrica, and probably inhabited the whole peninsula before the arrival ofthe Malays."

  "How funny that there should be niggers here," Harry said.

  "They are not exactly negroes, but one of the races known as negritos,having, of course, many negro characteristics, but differing from theAfrican negroes in some important particulars. To them our supremacywould be an unmixed blessing; their products would reach the coastuntaxed, and they would obtain all European goods at vastly cheaperrates. A minor benefit to be obtained by our supremacy is that oursportsmen would certainly speedily diminish the number of wild beaststhat at present are a scourge to cultivators; the tigers would bekilled down, the elephants captured and utilized, and the poor peoplewould not see their plantations ravaged, but would be able to travelthrough their forests without the constant danger of being carriedoff by tigers and panthers, and possibly be able to cross their riverswithout the risk of being snapped up by alligators; though, doubtless,it would take some time before this would be brought about."

  "And when do you think that we shall be going up the river, Doctor?"

  "That I cannot say. The Captain has been expecting orders ever since wecame here, six weeks ago; but possibly something may have been learnedof Sehi's characteristics, and there may be doubts as to the expediencyof taking under our protection a chief whose conduct appears to beanything but satisfactory. On the other hand, it may be considered thatby so doing we may establish some sort of influence over the surroundingtribes, and so make a step towards promoting trade and putting a stop tothese tribal wars, that are the curse of the country."

  "It would be an awful sell if they were to change their minds," Harryexclaimed.

  "I should be sorry myself, Parkhurst, for you know I am a collector. ButI can tell you that you won't find it all sport and pleasure. Youwill have no cool sea breezes; there will be occasion for continualwatchfulness, and perhaps long boat expeditions up sluggish streams, inan atmosphere laden with moisture and miasma."

  "One expects some drawbacks, Doctor."

  "You will find a good many, I can tell you, youngster. Still, I hopewe shall go up; and I think that we shall do so, for it will be theCaptain's report that will help the authorities to decide whether toappoint a Resident there or not."

  A fortnight later a small dispatch boat steamed in and the news soonspread through the ship that the Serpent was to ascend the river onthe following day. All was at once bustle and animation. Sailors likeanything for a change, and all were impatient at the long delay that hadoccurred.