Tales of the Malayan Coast
museums, preserved as a relic of the first steps in the art of wagon
building. And yet as a cart it is not to be despised: all the heavy
traffic of the colonies is done within its rude board sides. It has
two wheels, with heavy square spokes that are held on to a ponderous
wooden axle-tree by two wooden pins. A platform bottom rests on the
axle-tree, and two fence-like sides.
The genie of the cart, the hewer of wood and drawer of water, is a
tall, wiry, bronze-colored Hindu. He has a yard of white gauze about
his waist, and another yard twisted up into a turban on his head. The
dictates of fashion do not interest him. He does not plod along year in
and year out behind his team for the pittance of sixty cents per day,
to squander on the outside of his person. Not he. He has a wife up near
Simla. He hopes to go back next year, and buy a bit of ground back from
the hill on the Allabadd road from his father-in-law, old Mohammed
Mudd. They have cold weather up in Simla, and he knows of a certain
gown he is going to buy of a Chinaman in the bazaar. But his bullocks
lag, and he saws on the gamooty rope that is attached to their noses,
and beats them half consciously with his rattan whip. Ofttimes he will
stand stark upright in the cart for a full half-hour, with his rattan
held above his head in a threatening attitude, and talk on and on to
his animals, apotheosizing their strength and patience, telling them
how they are sacred to Buddha, how they are the companions of man, and
how they shall have an extra chupa of paddy when the sun goes down,
and he has delivered to the merchant sahib on the quay his load of
gambier; or he reproves them for their slowness and want of interest,
and threatens them with the rod, and tells them to look how he holds it
above them. If in the course of the harangue one of the dumb listeners
pauses to pick a mouthful of young lallang grass by the roadside,
the softly crooning tones give place to a shriek of denunciation.
The agile Kling springs down from his improvised pulpit, and rushes
at the offender, calls him the offspring of a pariah dog, shows him
the rattan, rubs it against his nose, threatening to cut him up with
it into small pieces, and to feed the pieces to the birds. Then he
discharges a volley of blows on the sleek sides of the offender, that
seem to have little more effect than to raise a cloud of tiger gnats,
and to cause the recipient to bite faster at the tender herbs.
As the bullock-cart that has blocked our way, and at the same time
inspired this description, shambles along down the shady road, and
out of the reach of the syce's arms, the driver slips quietly up the
pole of the cart until a hand rests on either hump, and commences
to talk in a half-aggrieved, half-caressing tone to his team. Our
syce translates. "He say bullock very bad to go to sleep before the
palanquin of the Heaven-Born. If they no be better soon, their souls
will no become men. He say he sorry that they make the great American
sahib angry."
The singular trio passes on, the driver praising and reprimanding
by turns in the soft, musical tongue of his people, the historic
beasts swinging lazily along, regardless of their illustrious past,
all unconscious of the fact that their names are embalmed in sacred
writ and Indian legend, and rounding a corner of the broad, red road,
are lost to view amid the olive-green shadows of a clump of gently
swaying bamboo. To me, for the moment, they seem to disappear, like
phantoms, into the mists of the dim centuries, from out of which my
imagination has called them forth.
Soon you are at the wide-open gates of the Botanic Garden. A perfect
riot of strange tropical foliage bursts upon the view. The clean, red
road winds about and among avenues of palms, waringhans, dark green
mangosteens, casuarinas, and the sweet-smelling hibiscus, all alike
covered with a hundred different parasitic vines and ferns. Artificial
lakes and moats are filled with the giant pods of the superb Victoria
regia, and the flesh-colored cups of the lotus.
In the translucent green twilight of the flower-houses a hundred
varieties of the costly orchids thrive--not costly here. A shipload
can be bought of the natives for three cents apiece.
Walks carry you out into the dim aisles of the native jungle. Monkeys,
surprised at your footsteps, spring from limb to limb, and swing,
chattering, out of sight in a mass of rubber-vines. Splendid
macadamized roads, that are kept in perfect repair by a force of
naked Hindus and an iron roller drawn by six unwilling, hump-backed
bullocks, spread out over the island in every direction. Leave one at
any point outside the town, and plunge into the bordering jungle,
and you are liable to meet a tiger or a herd of wild boar. The
tigers swim across the straits from the mainland, and occasionally
strike down a Chinaman. It is said that if a Chinaman, a Malay, and
a European are passing side by side through a field, the tiger will
pick out the Chinaman to the exclusion of the other two.
Acres upon acres of pineapples stretch away on either hand, while
patches of bananas and farms of coffee are interspersed with spice
trees and sago swamps.
This road system is the secret of the development of the agriculture,
and one of the secrets of the rapid growth of the great English
colonies. Were it not for the great black python, that lies sleeping in
the road in front of you, or the green iguana that hangs in a timboso
tree over your head, or a naked runner pulling a rickshaw, you might
think you were travelling the wide asphaltum streets of Washington.
The home of the European in Singapore is peculiar to the country. The
parks about their great bungalows are small copies of the Botanic
Gardens--filled with all that is beautiful in the flora of the
East. From five to twenty servants alone are kept to look after its
walks and hedges and lawns.
A bungalow proper may consist of but a half-dozen rooms, and yet look
like a vast manor house. It is the generous sweep of the verandas
running completely around the house that lends this impression. Behind
its bamboo chicks you retire on your return from the office. The
Chinese "boy" takes your pipe-clayed shoes and cork helmet, and
brings a pair of heelless grass slippers. If a friend drop in, you
never think of inviting him into your richly furnished drawing-room,
but motion him to a long rattan chair, call "Boy, bring the master
a cup of tea," and pass a box of Manila cigars.
Bungalows are one story high, with a roof of palm thatch, and are
raised above the ground from two to five feet by brick pillars, leaving
an open space for light and air beneath. Nearly every day it rains
for an hour in torrents. The hot, steaming earth absorbs the water,
and the fierce equatorial sun evaporates it, only to return it in a
like shower the next day. So every precaution must be taken against
dampness and dry-rot.
In every well-ordered bungalow seven to nine servants are an
absolute necessity, while three others are usually added from time
to time. The five elements, if I may so style them, are the "boy,"
or boys, the cook and his helpers, the horseman, the water-carrier,
the gardener, and the maid. The adjuncts are the barber, the wash man,
the tailor, and the watchman. In a mild way, you are at the mercy of
these servants. Their duties are fixed by caste, one never intruding
on the work of another. You must have all or none. Still this is
no hardship. Only newcomers ever think, of trying to economize on
servant bills. The record of the thermometer is too appalling, and
you speedily become too dependent on their attentions.
The Chinese "boy"--he is always the "boy" until he dies--is the
presiding genius of the house. He it is who brings your tea and fruit
to the bedside at 6 A.M., and lays out your evening suit ready for
dinner, puts your studs in your clean shirt, brings your slippers,
knows where each individual article of your wardrobe is kept, and,
in fact, thinks of a hundred and one little comforts you would never
have known of, had he not discovered them. He is your valet de chambre,
your butler, your steward and your general agent, your interpreter and
your directory. He controls the other servants with a rod of iron,
but bows to the earth before the mem, or the master. For his ten
Mexican dollars a month he takes all the burdens from your shoulders,
and stands between you and the rude outside polyglot world. He is
a hero-worshipper, and if you are a Tuan Besar--great man--he will
double his attentions, and spread your fame far and wide among his
brother majordomos.
But a description of each member of the menage and their duties would
be in a large measure the description of the odd, complex life of
the East.
The growth of Singapore since its founding by Sir Stamford Raffles
in 1819 would do honor to the growth of one of our Western cities.
Within three months after the purchase of the ground from the Sultan
of Johore, Raffles wrote to Lord Warren Hastings, the Governor:--
"We have a growing colony of nearly five thousand souls," and a little
later one of his successors wrote apologetically to Lord Auckland,
discussing some project relating to Singapore finance;--
"These details may appear to your Lordship petty, but then everything
connected with these settlements is petty, except their annual surplus
cost to the Government of India."
To-day the city and colony has a population of over one million,
and a revenue of five million dollars--a magnificent monument to its
founder's foresight!
From a commercial and strategic stand-point, the site of the city is
unassailable. When the English and the Dutch divided the East Indies
by drawing a line through the Straits of Malacca,--the English to hold
all north, the Dutch all south,--the crafty Dutchman smiled benignly,
with one finger in the corner of his eye, and went back to his coffee
and tobacco trading in the beautiful islands of Java and Sumatra,
pitying the ignorance of the Englishman, who was contented with the
swampy jungles of an unknown and savage neck of land, little thinking
that inside of a half century all his products would come to this
same despised district for a market, while his own colonies would
retrograde and gradually pass into the hands of the English.
Singapore is one of the great cities of the world, the centre of all
the East Indian commerce, the key of southern Asia, and one of the
massive links in the armored chain with which Great Britain encircles
the globe.
A FIGHT WITH ILLANUM PIRATES
The Yarn of a Yankee Skipper
The Daily Straits Times on the desk before me contained a vivid
word picture of the capture of the British steamship Namoa by three
hundred Chinese pirates, the guns of Hong Kong almost within sight,
and the year of our Lord 1890 just drawing to a close. The report
seemed incredible.
I pushed the paper across the table to the grizzled old captain
of the Bunker Hill and continued my examination of the accounts of
a half-dozen sailors of whom he was intent on getting rid. By the
time I had signed the last discharge and affixed the consular seal
he had finished the article and put it aside with a contemptuous
"Humph!" expressive of his opinion of the valor of the crew and
officers. I could see that he was anxious for me to give him my
attention while he related one of those long-drawn-out stories of
perhaps a like personal experience. I knew the symptoms and sometimes
took occasion to escape, if business or inclination made me forego
the pleasure. To-day I was in a mood to humor him.
There is always something deliciously refreshing in a sailor's yarn. I
have listened to hundreds in the course of my consular career, and