Tales of the Malayan Coast
Busuk's father-in-law is dead now, and the last time I visited Bander
Bahru to shoot wild pig, Mamat was punghulo, collecting the taxes
and administering the laws.
He raised the back of his open palm to his forehead with a quiet
dignity when I left, after the day's sport, and said, "Tabek! Tuan
Consul. Do not forget Mamat's humble bungalow." And Busuk came down the
ladder with little Mamat astride her bare shoulders, with a pleasant
"Tabek! Tuan! (Good-by, my lord.) May Allah's smile be ever with you."
A CROCODILE HUNT
At the foot of Mount Ophir
The little pleasant-faced Malay captain of his Highness's three-hundred
ton yacht Pante called softly, close to my ear, "Tuan--Tuan Consul,
Gunong Ladang!" I sprang to my feet, rubbed my eyes, and gazed in
the direction indicated by the brown hand.
I saw not five miles off the low jungle-bound coast of the peninsula,
and above it a great bank of vaporous clouds, pierced by the molten
rays of the early morning sun. As I looked around inquiringly, the
captain, bowing, said: "Tuan," and I raised my eyes. Again I saw the
lofty mountain peak surmounting the cushion of clouds, standing out
bold and clear against the almost fierce azure of the Malayan sky.
"Mount Ophir!" burst from my lips. The captain smiled and went
forward to listen to the linesman's "two fathoms, sir, two and one
half fathoms, sir, two fathoms, sir"; for we were crossing the shallow
bar that protects the mouth of the great river Maur from the ocean.
The tide was running out like a mill-race. The Pante was backing from
side to side, and then pushing carefully ahead, trying to get into
the deep water beyond, before low tide.
Suddenly there was a soft, grating sound and the captain came to me
and touched his hat.
"We are on the bar, sir. Will you send a despatch by the steam-cutter
to Prince Suliman, asking for the launch? We cannot get off until
the night tide."
The Pante had so swung around that we could plainly see the big
red istana, or palace, of Prince Suliman close to the sandy shore,
surrounded by a grove of graceful palms. With the aid of our glasses
the white and red blur farther up the river resolved itself into the
streets and quays of the little city of Bander Maharani, the capital
of the province of Maur in dominions of his Highness Abubaker, Sultan
of Johore. Above and overshadowing all both in beauty and historical
interest was the famous old mountain where King Solomon sent his
diminutive ships for "gold, silver, peacocks, and apes."
By the time the ladies were astir, the mists had vanished and Gunong
Ladang, or as it is styled in Holy Writ Mount Ophir, presented to
our admiring gaze its massive outlines, set in a frame of green and
blue. The dense jungle crept halfway up its sides and at the point
where the cloud stratum had rested but an hour before, it merged into
a tangled network of vines and shrubs which in their turn gave place
to the black, red rock that shone like burnished brass.
If our minds wandered away from visions of future crocodile-shooting
to dreams of the past wealth that had been taken from the ancient
mines that honeycombed the base of the mountain, it is hardly to
be wondered at. If Dato or "Lord" Garlands told us queer stories of
woods and masonry that antedated the written history of the country,
stories of mines and workings that were overgrown with a jungle that
looked as primeval as the mountain itself, he was to be excused on
the plea that we, waiting on a sandy bar with the metallic glare of
the sea in our eyes, were glad of any subject to distract our thoughts.
The Resident's launch brought out Prince Mat and the Chief Justice,
both of whom spoke English with an easy familiarity. Both had been in
Europe and Prince Mat had dined with Queen Victoria. One night at table
he related the incidents of that dinner with a delightful exactness
that might have pleased her Britannic Majesty could she have listened.
I waited only long enough to see the ladies installed in a suite of
rooms in the Residency, then donned a suit of white duck, stepped
into a river launch in company with Inchi Mohamed, the Chief Justice,
and steamed out into the broad waters of the Maur.
The southernmost kingdom of the great continent of Asia is the little
Sultanate of Johore, ruled over by one of the most enlightened Princes
of the East. Fourteen miles from Singapore, just across the notorious
old Straits of Malacca, is his capital and the palace of the Sultan.
We had been guests of the State for the past two weeks. Its ruler,
among other kind attentions to us, had suggested a visit to his out
province Maur and a crocodile hunt along the banks of the broad river
that wound about the foot of Mount Ophir.
Fifteen hours' steam in his beautiful yacht along the picturesque
shores of Johore brought us to the realization of a long-cherished
dream,--the seeing for ourselves the mountain whose exact location
had been a subject of conjecture for so many centuries. Were I a
scholar and explorer and not a sportsman, I might again and more
explicitly set forth facts which I consider indubitable proof that
the Mount Ophir of Asia and not the Mount Ophir of Africa is, as I
have already claimed, the Mount Ophir of the Bible. But here, I wish
only to narrate the record of a few pleasant days spent at its foot.
The Maur River, at its mouth, is a mile across; it is so deep that one
can run close up to its muddy banks and peer in under the labyrinth of
mangrove roots that stand like a rustic scaffold beneath its trunks,
protecting them from the highest flood-tides.
It was some time before I could pick out a crocodile as he lay
sleeping in his muddy bath, showing nothing above the slime except
the serrated line of his great back, which was so incrusted that,
but for its regularity, it might pass for the limb of a tree or some
fantastically shaped root.
"There you are!" said the Chief Justice, pointing at the bank almost
before we had reached the opposite side. I strained my eyes and raised
the hammer of my "50 x 110" Winchester; for I was to have a shot at
my first live crocodile.
We drew nearer and nearer the shore and yet I failed to see anything
that resembled an animal of any sort. The little launch slowed down
and the crew all pointed toward the bank. I cannot now imagine what
I expected then to see, but something must have been in my mind's
eye that blinded my bodily sight; for there, right before me, was a
little fellow not over three feet long.
He had just come up from the river, and his hide was clean and
almost a dark birch color. His head was raised and he was regarding
us suspiciously from his small green eyes.
I put down my rifle in disgust, and took up my revolver. I had no
idea of wasting a hundred and ten grains of powder on a baby. I took
careful aim and fired. The revolver was a self-cocker, and yet before
I could fire again, he had whirled about and was out of reach. He was
gone and I drew a long breath. The Malays said I struck him. If I did,
I had no means of proving it.
The only way to bag crocodiles is to kill them outright or nearly
so. If they have strength enough to crawl into the river and die,
they will come to the surface again two days later; but the chances
are that they will get under a root, or that in some way you will
lose them. Out of forty or fifty big and small ones that we hit only
five floated down past the Residency.
I also soon found out that my hundred and ten grain cartridges were
none too large for even the smaller crocodiles. As for those eighteen
and twenty feet long, it was necessary that the Chief Justice and I
should fire at the same time and at the same spot in order to arrest
the big saurians in their wild scramble for the water.
We had tried some half-dozen good shots at small fellows, varying from
two to five feet in length, when I began to lose interest in the sport;
so I turned to watch a colony of little gray, jungle monkeys, that
were swinging and chattering and scolding among the mangrove trees.
One of them picked a long dart-shaped fruit off the tree and essayed
to drop it on the head of his mate below. I was about to call my
companion's attention to it, when I heard a crash among the roots
near where the missile had fallen, and a crocodile, so large that I
distrusted my senses, turned his great log-like head to one side and
gazed up at the frightened monkeys. I raised my hand, and the launch
paused not over twenty yards from where he lay patiently waiting for
one of the monkeys to drop within reach of his great jaws.
The sun had dried the mud on his back until the entire surface reminded
me of the beach of a muddy mill-pond that I used to frequent as a boy.
"Boyah besar!" (A royal crocodile) repeated our Malays under their
breaths.
The Chief Justice and I fired at the same time, and the massive fellow
who, but a moment before, had looked to be as stiff and clumsy as
a bar of pig iron, now seemed to be made of india-rubber and steel
springs. I should not have been more surprised had the great timboso
tree, beside which he lay, arisen and danced a jig. He seemed to
spring from the middle up into the air without the aid of either
his head or his tail. Then he brought his tail around in a circle
and struck the skeleton roots of the mangrove with such force as to
dislodge a small monkey in its top, which fell whistling with fright
into the lower limbs, while the crocodile's great jaws, which seemed
to measure a third of his length, opened and shut viciously, snapping
off limbs and roots like straws.
"He sick!" shouted the Chief Justice. "Fire quick."
I threw the cartridge from the magazine into the barrel, and raised
the gun to my shoulder just as the huge saurian struck the water. My
bullet caught him underneath, near the back legs. My companion's must
have had more effect, for the crocodile stopped as though stunned. I
had time to drop my gun and snatch up my revolver.
It was an easy shot. The bullet sped true to its mark and entered one
of the small fiery eyes. The huge frame seemed to quiver as though
a charge of electricity had gone through it and then stiffened
out,--dead.
Our Malay boys got a rope of tough gamooty fibres around the great
head, and we towed our prize out into the stream just as the Resident's
launch, bearing the Prince and the ladies, steamed up the river to
watch the sport.
A crowd of servants got the crocodile up on the bank near the palace
grounds and drew it two hundred yards to their quarters. Now comes
the strangest part of the story.
My servants had half completed the task of skinning him, for I wished
to send his hide to the Smithsonian, when the muezzin sounded the call
to prayers from the little mosque near by. In an instant the devout
Mohammedans were on their faces and the crocodile in his half-skinned
state was left until a more convenient time. At six o'clock the next
morning I was awakened by a knock at my door:--
"Tuan, Tuan Consul, come see boyah (crocodile)."
I got up, wrapped a sarong about me, put my feet into a pair of grass
slippers, and followed my guide out of the palace, through the courts
to where the crocodile had been the night before, but no crocodile
was to be seen. My guide grinned and pointed to a heavy trail that
looked like the track of a stone-boat drawn by a yoke of oxen.
We followed it for a hundred yards in the direction of the river,
and came upon the crocodile, covered with blood and mud. His own
hide hung about him like a dress, and his one eye opened and shut at
the throng of wondering natives about. It was not until he had been
put out of his misery and his hide taken entirely off that we felt
confident of his bona fide demise.