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Isabella L. Bird - The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither
water. Trying to get along one of these I was altogether baffled, for it had no verge. The jungle presented
an impassable wall of dense vegetation on either side, the undergrowth and trees being matted together
by the stout, interminable strands of the rattan and other tenacious creepers, including a thorn-bearing
one, known among the Malays as "tigers' claws," from the curved hook of the thorn. I think I made my
way for about seven feet. This was a favorable specimen of a jungle track, and I now understand how the
Malays, by felling two or three trees, so that they lay across similar and worse roads, were able to delay
the British troops at a given spot for a day at a time.
[*It is possible that this was an exaggeration, and that the real price is $50.]
One might think that elephants roaming at large would render cultivation impossible, but they have the
greatest horror of anything that looks like a fence, and though they are almost powerful enough to break
down a strong stockade, a slight fence of reeds usually keeps them out of padi, cane, and maize
plantations.
Malays are gradually coming into Perak. It is said that there has been recently a large immigration from
Selangor. The Malay population is fifty-seven thousand nearly, with a large preponderance of males, but
fifty-eight thousand have crowded into the little strip of land called Province Wellesley, which is
altogether under British rule, and sixty-seven thousand into Malacca, which has the same advantage. I
suppose that slavery and polygamy have had something to do with the diminution of the population, as
well as small-pox. Formerly large armies of fighting men could be raised in these States. Islamism is
always antagonistic to national progress. It seems to petrify or congeal national life, placing each
individual in the position of a member of a pure theocracy, rather than in that of a patriotic citizen of a
country, or member of a nationality. In these States law, government and social customs have no
existence apart from religion, and, indeed, they grow out of it.
It is strange that a people converted from Arabia, and partly, no doubt, civilized both from Arabia and
Persia, should never have constructed anything permanent. If they were swept away to-morrow not a
trace of them except their metal work would be to be found. Civilized as they are, they don't leave any
more impress on the country than a Red Indian would. They have not been destroyed by great wars, or
great pestilences, or the ravages of drink, nor can it be said that they perish mysteriously, as some
peoples have done, by contact with Europeans; yet it is evident that the dwindling process has been going
on for several generations.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXI
A Malay Interior - Malay Bird-Scaring - Rice Culture - Picturesque Dismalness - A Bad Spell - An
Alarm - Possibilities of Peril - Patience and Kindness - Masculine Clatter
KWALA KANGSA, February 20.
Yesterday afternoon I had an expedition which I liked very much, though it ended a little awkwardly
owing to a late start. Captain Walker was going on a shooting excursion to a lotus lake at some distance,
and invited me to join him. So we started after tiffin with two Malays, crossed the Perak in a "dug-out,"
and walked for a mile over a sandy, grassy shore, which there lies between the bright water and the
forest, then turned into the jungle, and waded through a stream which was up to my knees as we went,
and up to my waist as we returned. Then a tremendous shower came on, and we were asked to climb into
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