Tales of the Malayan Coast
have yet to find one that is dull or prosy. They all bear the imprint
of truth, perhaps a trifle overdrawn, but nevertheless sparkling with
the salt of the sea and redolent of the romance of strange people
and distant lands. In listening, one becomes almost dizzy at the
rapidity with which the scene and personnel change. The icebergs and
the aurora borealis of the Arctic give place to the torrid waters
and the Southern Cross of the South Pacific. A volcanic island, an
Arabian desert, a tropical jungle, and the breadth and width of the
ocean serve as the theatre, while a Fiji Islander, an Eskimo, and
a turbaned Arab are actors in a half-hour's tale. In interest they
rival Verne, Kingston, or Marryat. All they lack is skilled hands to
dress them in proper language.
I
THE CAPTAIN'S YARN
The captain helped himself to one of my manilas and began:--
I've nothing to say about the fate of the poor fellows on the Namoa,
seeing the captain was killed at the first fire, but it looks to me
like a case of carelessness which was almost criminal. The idea of
allowing three hundred Chinese to come aboard as passengers without
searching them for arms. Why! it is an open bid to pirates. Goes to
show pretty plain that these seas are not cleared of pirates. Sailing
ships nowadays think they can go anywhere without a pound of powder
or an old cutlass aboard, just because there is an English or Dutch
man-of-war within a hundred miles. I don't know what we'd have done
when I first traded among these islands without a good brass swivel
and a stock of percussion-cap muskets.
Let me see; it was in '58, I was cabin boy on the ship Bangor. Captain
Howe, hale old fellow from Maine, had his two little boys aboard. They
are merchants now in Boston. I've been sailing for them on the Elmira
ever since. We were trading along the coast of Borneo. Those were
great days for trading in spite of the pirates. That was long before
iron steamers sent our good oaken ships to rot in the dockyards of
Maine. Why, in those days you could see a half-dozen of our snug
little crafts in any port of the world, and I've seen more American
flags in this very harbor of Singapore than of any other nation. We
had come into Singapore with a shipload of ice (no scientific ice
factories then), and had gone along the coast of Java and Borneo to
load with coffee, rubber, and spices, for a return voyage. We were
just off Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, and about loaded, when the
captain heard that gold had been discovered somewhere up near the head
of the Rejang. The captain was an adventurous old salt, and decided
to test the truth of the story; so, taking the long-boat and ten men,
he pulled up the Sarawak River to Kuching and got permission of Rajah
Brooke to go up the Rejang on a hunting expedition. The Rajah was
courteous, but tried to dissuade us from the undertaking by relating
that several bands of Dyaks had been out on head-hunting expeditions
of late, and that the mouth of the Rejang was infested by Illanum
pirates. The captain only laughed, and jokingly told Sir James that
if the game proved scarce he might come back and claim the prize
money on a boat-load of pirate heads.
We started at once,--for the captain let me go; we rowed some sixty
miles along the coast to the mouth of the Rejang; then for four days
we pulled up its snakelike course. It was my first bit of adventure,
and everything was strange and new. The river's course was like a
great tunnel into the dense black jungle. On each side and above we
were completely walled in by an impenetrable growth of great tropical
trees and the iron-like vines of the rubber. The sun for a few hours
each day came in broken shafts down through the foliage, and exposed
the black back of a crocodile, or the green sides of an iguana. Troops
of monkeys swung and chattered in the branches above, and at intervals
a grove of cocoanut broke the monotony of the scenery. Among them we
would land and rest for the day or night, eat of their juicy fruit,
and go on short excursions for game. A roasted monkey, some baked yams,
and a delicious rice curry made up a royal bill of fare, and as the
odor of our tobacco mixed with the breathing perfume of the jungle,
I would fall asleep listening to sea-yarns that sometimes ran back
to the War of 1812.
II
At the end of the fifth day we arrived at the head of the Rejang. Here
the river broke up into a dozen small streams and a swamp. A stockade
had been erected, and the Rajah had stationed a small company of
native soldiers under an English officer to keep the head-hunting
Dyaks in check. I don't remember what our captain found out in regard
to the gold fields, at least it was not encouraging; for he gave up
the search and joined the English lieutenant in a grand deer-hunt
that lasted for five days, and then started back accompanied by two
native soldiers bearing despatches to the Rajah.
It was easy running down the river with the current. One man in each
end of the boat kept it off roots, sunken logs, and crocodiles, and the
rest of us spent the time as best our cramped space allowed. Twice
we detected the black, ugly face of a Dyak peering from out the
jungle. The men were for hunting them down for the price on their
heads, but the captain said he never killed a human being except in
self-defence, and that if the Rajah wanted to get rid of the savages he
had better give the contract to a Mississippi slave-trader. Secretly,
I was longing for some kind of excitement, and was hoping that the
men's clamorous talk would have some effect. I never doubted our
ability to raid a Dyak village and kill the head-hunters and carry off
the beautiful maidens. I could not see why a parcel of blacks should
be such a terror to the good Rajah, when Big Tom said he could easily
handle a dozen, and flattered me by saying that such a brawny lad as
I ought to take care of two at least.
In the course of three days we reached the mouth of the river, and
prepared the sail for the trip across the bay to the Bangor. Just as
everything was in readiness, one of those peculiar and rapid changes
in the weather, that are so common here in the tropics near the
equator, took place. A great blue-black cloud, looking like an immense
cartridge, came up from the west. Through it played vivid flashes of
lightning, and around it was a red haze. "A nasty animal," I heard the
bo's'n tell the captain, and yet I was foolishly delighted when they
decided to risk a blow and put out to sea. The sky on all sides grew
darker from hour to hour. A smell of sulphur came to our nostrils. It
was oppressively hot; not a breath of wind was stirring. The sail
flapped uselessly against the mast, and the men labored at the oars,
while streams of sweat ran from their bodies.
The captain had just taken down the mast, when, without a moment's
warning, the gale struck us and the boat half filled with water. We
managed to head it with the wind, and were soon driving with the
rapidity of a cannon-ball over the boiling and surging waters. It was
a fearful gale; we blew for hours before it, ofttimes in danger of a
volcanic reef, again almost sunk by a giant wave. I baled until I was
completely exhausted. But the long-boat was a stanch little craft, and
there were plenty of men to manage it, so as long as we could keep her
before the wind, the captain felt no great anxiety as to our safety.
III
At about six bells in the afternoon, the wind fell away, and the
rain came down in torrents, leaving us to pitch about on the rapidly
decreasing waves, wet to the skin and unequal to another effort. We
were within a mile of a rocky island that rose like a half-ruined
castle from the ocean. The Dyak soldiers called it Satang Island,
and I have sailed past it many a time since. Without waiting for
the word, we rowed to it and around it, before we found a suitable
beach on which to land. One end of the island rose precipitous and
sheer above the beach a hundred feet, and ended in a barren plateau
of some two dozen acres. The remainder comprised some hundred acres
of sand and rocks, on which were half a dozen cocoanut trees and a
few yams. Along the beach we found a large number of turtles' eggs.
The captain, remembering the Rajah's caution in regard to pirates,
decided not to make a light, but we were wet and hungry and overcame
his scruples, and soon had a huge fire and a savory repast of coffee,
turtles' eggs, and yams. At midnight it was extinguished, and a
watch stationed on top of the plateau. Toward morning I clambered
grumblingly up the narrow, almost perpendicular sides of the rift
that cut into the rocky watch-tower. I did not believe in pirates
and was willing to take my chances in sleep. I paced back and forth,
inhaling deep breaths of the rich tropical air; below me the waves
beat in ripples against the rugged beach, casting off from time to
time little flashes of phosphorescent light, and mirroring in their
depths the hardly distinguishable outline of the Southern Cross. The
salt smell of the sea was tinged with the spice-laden air of the
near coast. Drowsiness came over me. I picked up a musket and paced
around the little plateau. The moon had but just reached its zenith,
making all objects easily discernible. The smooth storm-swept space
before me reflected back its rays like a well-scrubbed quarter-deck;
below were the dark outlines of my sleeping mates. I could hear the
light wind rustling through the branches of the casuarina trees that
fringed the shore. I paused and looked over the sea. Like a charge
of electricity a curious sensation of fear shot through me. Then an
intimation that some object had flashed between me and the moon. I
rubbed my eyes and gazed in the air above, expecting to see a night
bird or a bat. Then the same peculiar sensation came over me again,
and I looked down in the water below just in time to see the long,
keen, knife-like outline of a pirate prau glide as noiselessly as a
shadow from a passing cloud into the gloom of the island. Its great,
wide-spreading, dark red sails were set full to the wind, and hanging
over its sides by ropes were a dozen naked Illanums, guiding the
sensitive craft almost like a thing of life. Within the prau were
two dozen fighting men, armed with their alligator hide buckler,
long, steel-tipped spear, and ugly, snake-like kris. A third prau
followed in the wake of the other two, and all three were lost in
the blackness of the overhanging cliffs.
With as little noise as possible, I ran across the plain and warned my
companion, then picked my way silently down the defile to the camp. The
captain responded to my touch and was up in an instant. The men were
awakened and the news whispered from one to another. Gathering up
what food and utensils we possessed, we hurried to get on top of
the plateau before our exact whereabouts became known. The captain
hoped that when they discovered we were well fortified and there was
no wreck to pillage, they would withdraw without giving battle. They
had landed on the opposite side of the island from our boat and might
leave it undisturbed. We felt reasonably safe in our fortress from
attacks. There were but two breaks in its precipitous sides, each a
narrow defile filled with loose boulders that could easily be detached
and sent thundering down on an assailant's head. On the other hand,
our shortness of food and water made us singularly weak in case of
siege. But we hoped for the best. Two men were posted at each defile,
and as nothing was heard for an hour, most of us fell asleep.
IV
It was just dawn, when we were awakened by the report of two muskets
and the terrific crashing of a great boulder, followed by groans
and yells. With one accord we rushed to the head of the canon.