Tales of the Malayan Coast
We filed through the grand salon, with its luxurious medley of divans,
tapestries, and rugs, through a great hall whose walls were hung with
heroic-sized paintings of the English royal family, down a flight of
steps, across the marble reception room, and into the open doors of
the royal dining room.
From its polished ceiling of black billion wood hung great white
punkahs, which half-nude Indians on the outside kept gently swaying
back and forth.
In the centre of the vast table stood a golden urn filled with
delicate maidenhair ferns and dragon orchids. Against a great
plate-glass mirror, at the far end, rested massive salvers of gold,
engraven with the arms of Johore, and in its flawless depths shone
the jewels that decked the entering throng and the splendid service
of plate that dazzled our eyes.
Around his Highness's throat was a collar of diamonds and on his hands
and in the decorations that covered his breast were diamonds, emeralds,
and rubies, of almost priceless value. Each button of his coat and
low-cut vest was a diamond, and from the front of his rimless cap
waved a plume of diamonds. On his wrists were heavy gold bracelets
of Malayan workmanship, and his fingers were cramped with almost
priceless rings. In his buttonhole blazed a diamond orchid. The
handle and scabbard of his sword were a solid mass of precious
stones. Altogether this little known Oriental potentate possessed
$10,000,000 worth of diamonds, the second largest collection on earth.
In personal appearance his Highness compared favorably with the best
representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race. He was five feet eight in
height, well built, with clean-cut, kindly features, in color nearer
the Spanish type than the Indian. His hands and feet were small,
forehead high and full, lips thin, and nose aquiline, his hair and
mustache iron gray. He spoke good English, and was able to converse in
French and German. In every-day dress he affected the English Prince
Albert suit, to which he added a narrow silk sarong and a rimless
black cap.
Besides being a lover of jewels, his Highness was a lover of good
horseflesh and of yachts. His stud comprised two hundred horses, among
which were fleet Arabians, sturdy little Deli ponies, thoroughbred
Australians, and Indian galloways. Twice a year he offered a cup at
the Singapore jockey races, and entered a half dozen of his best
runners. At his tent on the grounds he dispensed champagne, ices,
and cakes, and his native band of thirty pieces played alternately
with the regimental band from the English barracks.
His three hundred ton steam-launch was built on the Clyde. Besides
the Sultan's saloon on the lower deck, which was furnished befitting a
king, there were cabins for ten people. The promenade deck was under
an awning, and was furnished with a heavy rosewood dining-table and
long chairs. She carried four guns of long range.
The revenue of Johore amounts to six million dollars a year, to
which the Sultan's private property in Singapore adds nearly a half
million more. The bulk of the national revenue is raised from opium,
spirits, and gambling. The scheme of taxation is simple, but most
effective. Any Chinaman who has a longing for the pipe pays into his
Highness's treasury one dollar a month, and is granted a permit to buy
and smoke opium; another monthly dollar and he is licensed to drink.
The gambling privilege is given to the highest bidder, and he has the
monopoly for the kingdom. There is also a small export tax on gambier
and tin. On the other hand, any immigrant that wishes to settle and
open a farm of any kind is given all the ground he can work, rent free,
to have and to hold as long as he keeps it under cultivation. Should
he leave, it reverts with all its improvements to the crown.
The government is autocratic, but tempered and kept in sympathy
with the English ideas of justice as seen in the great colonies that
surround it.
The dinner throughout was European, save for the one national
dish, curry. Every Malay, from the poorest fisherman along the
mangrove-fretted lagoon to the chef of his Highness's kitchen, justly
boasts of the excellence of his curry and the number of sambuls he
can make.
First came a golden bowl filled with rice, as white and as light
as snow; then another, in which was a gravy of yellow curry powder,
choice bits of fowl, and plump, fresh slices of egg-plant. Then came
the sambuls, or condiments, more than forty varieties, in little
circular dishes of Japanese ware on big silver trays. There were
fish-roes, ginger, and dried fish, or "Bombay duck," duck's eggs
hashed with spices, chutney, peppers, grated cocoanut, anchovies,
browned crumbs, chicken livers, fried bananas, barley sprouts, onions,
and many more, that were mixed and stirred into the spongy rice until
your taste was baffled and your senses bewildered.
We knew that the curry was coming, so we passed courses that were
as expensive and rare in this equatorial land as the fruit of the
durians would be in New York,--mutton from Shanghai, turkey from Siam,
beef from Australia, and oysters from far up the river Maur. We felt
that besides being a pleasure to ourselves it was a compliment to
our royal host to partake generously of his national dish.
"This service," said the old Tuan Hakim, or chief justice, pointing to
the gold plate off which we were dining, "is the famous Ellinborough
plate that once belonged to that strange woman, Lady Ellinborough. His
Highness attended the auction of her things in Scotland. Do you
see the little Arabic character on the rim of each? It is the late
Sultana's name. His Highness telegraphed to her for the money to pay
for it, and she telegraphed back two hundred thousand dollars, with
the request that her name be engraved on each. Then she presented
them to her husband. The Sultana was very rich in her own right,
and left the Sultan over two million dollars when she died."
Throughout the long dinner the native band played the airs of Europe
and America, intermixed with bits of weird Malayan song. After we
had lighted our cigars from the golden censer, the British Governor
arose and proposed the health of the Sultan and the young heir
apparent. His Highness raised his glass of pineapple juice to his
lips in acknowledgment, and said smilingly to me as the Prime Minister
said the magic word that stirs every Englishman's heart,--
"The Queen!"
"Your people think all Orientals very bad."
I protested.
"Oh, yes, you do; that is why you send so many missionaries among
us. But," he went on pleasantly, "look around my table. Not one of
my court has touched the wine. A Mohammedan never drinks. Can you
say as much for your people?"
Then he raised his glass once more to his lips and said quietly,
while his eyes twinkled at my confusion:--
"Tell your great President that Abubaker, Sultan of Johore, drank
his health in simple pineapple juice."
As the sun sank behind the misty dome of Mount Pulei we embarked once
more at the broad palace steps in the royal barges, amid the booming
of guns and the strains of the international "God Save the Queen,"
"My Country, 'tis of Thee," and bared our heads to the royal standard
of Johore that floated so proudly above the palace, thankful for this
short peep into the heart of an Oriental court.
So the young Prince received the crown from the hands of his
father. To-day, the bones of that grand old statesman, the Sultan of
Johore, rest beside those of his royal fathers within the shadow of
the mosque.
In 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles purchased the island on which
Singapore now stands from the father of the late Sultan of Johore,
the royal palace was a palm-thatched bungalow, the country an
unbroken jungle, and the inhabitants pirates and fishermen by turns;
the notorious Strait of Malacca was infested with long, keen, swift
pirate praus, and the snake-like kris menaced the merchant marine of
the world.
The advancement of the United States has not been more rapid since
that date than the advancement of Johore. The attap istana, or palace,
has given place to a series of palaces that rival those of many a much
better-known country; the jungle has given place to plantations of
gambier, tea, coffee, and pepper; the few elephant tracks and forest
paths, to a network of macadamized roads and projected railways;
and the native praus, to English-built barks and deeply laden cargo
steamers.
Two hundred thousand hard-working, money-making Chinese have been
added to the thirty-five thousand Malay aborigines, and the revenue
of this remnant of an empire is far greater than was the revenue of
the original state.
It remains to be seen whether the young Sultan will follow in the
footsteps of his father and preserve to Johore the distinction of
being, with the one exception of Siam, the only independent native
kingdom in southern Asia. One misstep and he will become but a
dependency of the great British Empire, a king only in name.
IN THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE
A Peep at the City of Singapore
Could an American boy, like a prince in the Arabian Nights, be taken by
a genie from his warm bed in San Francisco or New York and awakened
in the centre of Raffles Square, in Singapore, I will wager that
he would be sadly puzzled to even give the name of the continent on
which he had alighted.
Neither the buildings, the people, or the vehicles would aid him in
the least to decide.
Enclosing the four sides of the little banian-tree shaded park
in which he stands are rows of brick, white-faced, high-jointed
go-downs. Through their glassless windows great white punkahs swing
back and forth with a ceaseless regularity. Standing outside of each
window, a tall, graceful punkah-wallah tugs at a rattan withe, his
naked limbs shining like polished ebony in the fierce glare of the
Malayan sun.
For a moment, perhaps, the boy thinks himself in India, possibly at
Simla, for he has read some of Rudyard Kipling's stories.
Back under the portico-like verandas, whose narrow breadths take the
place of sidewalks, are little booths that look like bay windows turned
inside out. On the floor of each sits a Turk, cross-legged, or an Arab,
surrounded by a heterogeneous assortment of wares, fez caps, brass
finger-bowls, a praying rug, a few boxes of Japanese tooth-picks, some
rare little bottles of Arab essence, a betel-nut box, and a half dozen
piles of big copper cents, for all shopkeepers are money-changers.
The merchant gathers his flowing party-colored robes about him,
tightens the turban head, and draws calmly at his water-pipe while a
bevy of Hindu and Tamil women bargain for a new stud for their noses,
a showy amulet, or a silver ring for their toes.
Squatting right in the way of all passers is a Chinese travelling
restaurant that looks like two flour barrels, one filled with drawers,
the other containing a small charcoal fire. The old cookee, with
his queue tied neatly up about his shaven head, takes a variety of
mixtures from the drawers,--bits of dried fish, seaweed, a handful of
spaghetti, possibly a piece of shark's fin, or better still a lump of
bird's nest, places them in the kettle, as he yells from time to time,
"Machen, machen" (eating, eating).
Next to the Arab booth is a Chinese lamp shop, then a European
dry-goods store, an Armenian law office, a Japanese bazaar, a foreign
consulate.
A babble of strange sounds and a jargon of languages salute the
astonished boy's ears.
In the broad well-paved streets about him a Malay syce, or driver,
is trying to urge his spotted Deli pony, which is not larger than a
Newfoundland dog, in between a big, lumbering two-wheeled bullock-cart,
laden with oozing bags of vile-smelling gambier, and a great patient