Tales of the Malayan Coast Part 5

Wahpering, too, might have added to his sarong a thin vest, b.u.t.toned close up to the neck, a light dimity baju, or jacket, and a pair of loose silk drawers. They made no apology for their appearance, but did the honors of the house with a native grace, regaling us with the cool, fresh milk of the cocoanut, and the delicious globes of the mangosteens.

The glare of the noonday sun, here on the equator, is inconceivable. It beats down in bald, irregular waves of heat that seem to stifle every living being and to burn the foliage to a cinder. Even the sharp, insistent whir of the cicada ceases when the thermometer on the sunny side of our palm-thatched bungalow reaches 155. If I am forced to go outside, I don my cork helmet, and hold a paper umbrella above it. Even then, after I have gone a half-hour, I feel dizzy and sick. I pa.s.s native after native, whose only head covering, if they have any at all save their short-cut black hair, is a handkerchief, stiffened, and tied with a peculiar twist on the head, or a rimless cap with possibly a text of the Koran embroidered on its front. It is only when they are on the sea from early morning to sunset, that they think it worth while to protect their heads with an umbrella-shaped, cane-worked head frame like those worn by the natives of Siam and China. The women I meet simply draw their sarongs more closely about their heads as the sun ascends higher and higher into the heavens, and go clattering off down the road in their wooden pattens, unconscious of my envy or wonderment.

The sarong is more to the Malay than is the kilt to the Scotchman. It is his dress by day and his covering at night. He uses it as a sail when far out from land in his c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l boat, or as a bag in which to carry his provisions when following an elephant path through the dense jungle.

The checks, in its design, although indistinguishable to the European, differ according to his tribe or clan, and serve him as a means of identification wherever he may be on the peninsula.

The sarong and kris are distinctly and solely Malayan; they are shared with no other country; they are to be placed side by side with the green turban of the Moslem pilgrim and the cimeter of the Prophet.

A history of one, like the history of the other, embraces all that is tragical or romantic in Malayan story.

THE KRIS

And how the Malays use it

In an old dog-eared copy of Monteith's Geography, I remember a picture of a half-dozen pirate prahus attacking a merchantman off a jungle-bordered sh.o.r.e. A blazing sun hung high in the heavens above the fated s.h.i.+p, and, to my youthful imagination, seemed to beat down on the tropical scene with a fierce, remorseless intensity. The wedge-shaped tops of some palm-thatched and palm-shaded huts could just be seen, set well back from the sh.o.r.e.

I used to think that if I were a boy on that s.h.i.+p, I would slip quietly overboard, swim ash.o.r.e, and while the pirates were busy fighting, I would set fire to their homes and so deliver the s.h.i.+p from their clutches. Little did I know then of the acres of bewildering mangrove swamps filled with the treacherous crocodiles that lie between the low-water line and the firm ground of the coast.

But always the most striking thing in the little woodcut to me were the curious, snake-like knives that the naked natives held in their hands. I had never seen anything like them before. I went to the encyclopaedia and found that the name of the knife was spelled kris and p.r.o.nounced creese.

The day-dreams which seemed impossible in the days of Monteith's Geography have since been realized. I am living, perhaps, within sight of the very place where the scene of the picture was laid; for it was supposed to be ill.u.s.trative of the Malay Peninsula; and, as I write, one of those snake-like krises lies on the table before me. It is a handsomer kris than those used by the actors in that much-studied picture of my youth. The sheath and handle are of solid gold--a rich yellow gold, mined at the foot of Mount Ophir, the very same mountain so famous in Bible history, from which King Solomon brought "gold, peac.o.c.ks' feathers, and monkeys." The wavy, flame-like blade is veined with gold, and its dull silvery surface is damascened with as much care as was ever taken with the old swords of Damascus. It is only an inch in width and a foot in length and does not look half as dangerous as a Turkish cimeter; yet it has a history that would put that of the tomahawk or the scalping-knife to shame. Many a fat Chinaman, trading between the Java islands and Amoy, has felt its keen edge at his throat and seen his rich cargo of spices and bird's-nests rifled, his beloved Joss thrown overboard, and his queer old junk burnt before his eyes. Many a Dutch and English merchantman sailed from Batavia and Bombay in the days of the old East India Company and has never more been heard of until some mutilated survivor returned with a harrowing tale of Malay piracy and of the lightning-like work of the dreaded kris.

I do not know whether my kris has ever taken life or not. Had it done so, I do not think the Sultan would have given it to me, for a kris becomes almost priceless after its baptism of blood. It is handed down from generation to generation, and its sanguine history becomes a part of the education of the young. Next to his Koran the kris is the most sacred thing the Malay possesses. He regards it with an almost superst.i.tious reverence. My kris is dear to me, not from any superst.i.tious reasons, but because it was given me by his Highness, the Sultan of Joh.o.r.e, the only independent sovereign on the peninsula, and because the gold of its sheath came from the jungle-covered slopes of Mount Ophir.

The maker of the kris is a person of importance among the Malays, and ofttimes he is made by his grateful Rajah a Dato, or Lord, for his skill. Like the blades of the st.u.r.dy armorers of the Crusades, his blades are considered, as he fas.h.i.+ons them from well-hammered and well-tempered Celebes iron, works of art and models for futurity. He is exceedingly punctilious in regard to their shape, size, and general formation, and the process of giving them their beautiful water lines is quite a ceremony. First the razor-like edges are covered with a thin coating of wax to protect them from the action of the acids; then a mixture of boiled rice, sulphur, and salt is put on the blade and left for seven days until a film of rust rises to the surface. The blade is then immersed in the water of a young cocoanut or the juice of a pineapple and left seven days longer. It is next brushed with the juice of a lemon until all the rust is cleared away, and then rubbed with a.r.s.enic dissolved in lime-juice and washed with cold spring water. Finally it is anointed with cocoanut oil, and as a concluding test of its fineness and temper, it is said that in the old days its owner would rush out into the kampong, or village, and stab the first person he met.

The sheath of the kris is generally made of kamooning wood, but often of ivory, gold, or silver. The handle, while more frequently of wood or buffalo horn, is sometimes of gold studded with precious stones and worth more than all the other possessions of its owner put together.

The kris, too, has its etiquette. It is always worn on the left side stuck into the folds of the sarong, or skirt, the national dress of the Malay. During an interview it is considered respectful to conceal it; and its handle is turned with its point close to the body of the wearer, if the wearer be friendly. If, however, there is ill blood existing, and the wearer is angry, the kris is exposed, and the point of the handle turned the reverse way.

The kris as a weapon of offence and defence is now almost a thing of the past. It is rapidly going the way of the tomahawk and the boomerang--into the collector's cabinet. There is a law in Singapore that forbids its being worn, and outside of Joh.o.r.e and the native states it is seldom seen. It is still used as an executioner's knife by the protected Sultan of Selangor, its keen point being driven into the heart of the victim; but in a few years that practice, too, will be abolished by the humane intervention of the English government.

It is to be hoped that the record of the kris is not as bad as it has been painted by some, and that at times in its b.l.o.o.d.y career it has been on the side of justice and right. The part it took in the piracy that once made the East Indian seas so famous was not always done for the sake of gain, but often for revenge and for independence.

THE WHITE RAJAH OF BORNEO

The Founding of Sarawak

In the East Indian seas, by Europeans and natives alike, two names are revered with a singleness and devotion that place them side by side with the national heroes of all countries.

The men that bear the names are Englishmen, yet the countless islands of the vast Malayan archipelago are populated by a hundred European, African, and Asiatic races.

Sir Stamford Raffles founded the great city of Singapore, and Sir James Brooke, the "White Rajah," carved out of a tropical wilderness just across the equator, in Borneo, the kingdom of Sarawak.

There is no one man in all history with whom you may compare Rajah Brooke. His career was the score of a hero of the footlights or of the dime novel rather than the life of an actual history-maker in this prosaic nineteenth century. What is true of him is also true in a less degree of his famous nephew and successor, Sir Charles Brooke, G. C. M. C., the present Rajah.

One morning in Singapore, as I sipped my tea and broke open one cool, delicious mangosteen after another, I was reading in the daily Straits Times an account of the descent of a band of head-hunting Dyaks from the jungles of the Rejang River in Borneo on an isolated fis.h.i.+ng kampong, or village,--of how they killed men, women, and children, and carried their heads back to their strongholds in triumph, and of how, in the midst of their feasting and ceremonies, Rajah Brooke, with a little company of fierce native soldiery, had surprised and exterminated them to the last man; and just then the sound of heavy cannonading in the harbor below caused me to drop my paper.

In a moment the great guns from Fort Canning answered. I counted--seventeen--and turned inquiringly to the naked punkah-wallah, who stood just outside in the shade of the wide veranda, listlessly pulling the rattan rope that moved the stiff fan above me.

His brown, open palm went respectfully to his forehead.

"His Highness, the Rajah of Sarawak," he answered proudly in Malay. "He come in gunboat Ranee to the Gymkhana races,--bring gold cup for prizes and fast runners. Come every year, Tuan."

I had forgotten that it was the first day of the long-looked-for Gymkhana races. A few hours later I met this remarkable man, whose thrilling exploits had commanded my earliest boyish admiration.

The kindly old Sultan of Joh.o.r.e, the old rebel Sultan of Pahang, the Sultan of Lingae, in all the finery of their native silks and jewels, the n.o.bles of their courts, and a dozen other dignitaries, were on the grandstand and in the paddock as we entered, yet no one but a modest, gray-haired little man by the side of the English governor had any place in my thoughts. We knew his history. It was as romantic as the wild careers of Pizarro and Cortez; as charming as those of Robinson Crusoe and the dear old Swiss Family Robinson; as tragic as Captain Kidd's or Morgan's; and withal, it was modelled after our own Was.h.i.+ngton. In him I saw the full realization of every boy's wildest dreams,--a king of a tropical island.

The bell above the judges' pavilion sounded, and a little whirlwind of running griffins dashed by amid the yells of a thousand natives in a dozen different tongues. The Rajah leaned out over the gayly decorated railing with the eagerness of a boy, as he watched his own colors in the thick of the race.

The surging ma.s.s of nakedness below caught sight of him, and another yell rent the air, quite distinct from the first, for Malayan and Kling, Tamil and Siamese, Dyak and Javanese, Hindu, Bugis, Burmese, and Lascar, recognized the famous White Rajah of Borneo, the man who, all unaided, had broken the power of the savage head-hunting Dyaks, and driven from the seas the fierce Malayan pirates. The yell was not a cheer. It was a tribute that a tiger might make to his tamer.

The Rajah understood. He was used to such sinister outbursts of admiration, for he never took his eyes from the course. He was secure on his throne now, but I could not but wonder if that yell, which sent a strange thrill through me, did not bring up recollections of one of the hundred sanguinary scenes through which he and his great uncle, the elder Rajah Brooke, had gone when fighting for their lives and kingdom.

The Sultan of Joh.o.r.e's griffin won, and the Rajah stepped back to congratulate him. I, too, pa.s.sed over to where he stood, and the kindly old Sultan took me by the hand.

"I have a very tender spot in my heart for all Americans," the Rajah replied to his Highness's introduction. "It was your great republic that first recognized the independence of Sarawak."

As we chatted over the triumph of Gladstone, the silver bill, the tariff, and a dozen topics of the day, I was thinking of the head-hunters of whom I had read in the morning paper. I was thinking, too, of how this man's uncle had, years before, with a boat's crew of English boys, carved out of an unknown island a princ.i.p.ality larger than the state of New York, reduced its savage population to orderly tax-paying citizens, cleared the Borneo and Java seas of their thousands of pirate praus, and in their place built up a merchant fleet and a commerce of nearly five millions of dollars a year. The younger Rajah, too, had done his share in the making of the state. In his light tweed suit and black English derby, he did not look the strange, impossible hero of romance I had painted him; but there was something in his quiet, clear, well-bred English accent, and the strong, deep lines about his eyes and mouth, that impressed one with a consciousness of tremendous reserve force. He spoke always slowly, as though wearied by early years of fighting and exposure in the searching heat of the Bornean sun.

We became better acquainted later at b.a.l.l.s and dinners, and he was never tired of thanking me for my country's kindness.

In 1819, when the English took Malacca and the Malay peninsula from the Dutch, they agreed to surrender all claims to the islands south of the pirate-infested Straits of Malacca.

The Dutch, contented with the fabulously rich island of Java and its twenty-six millions of mild-mannered natives, left the great islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua to the savage rulers and savage nations that held them.

The son of an English clergyman, on a little schooner, with a friend or two and a dozen sailors, sailed into these little known and dangerous waters one day nineteen years later. His mind was filled with dreams of an East-Indian empire; he was burning to emulate Cortez and Pizarro, without practising their abuses. He had entered the English army and had been so dangerously wounded while leading a charge in India after his superiors had fallen that he had been retired on a pension before his twenty-first year. While regaining his health, he had travelled through India, Malaya, and China, and had written a journal of his wanderings. During this period his ambitions were crowding him on to an enterprise that was as foolhardy as the first voyage of Columbus.

He had spied those great tropical islands that touched the equator, and he coveted them.

After his father's death he invested his little fortune in a schooner, and in spite of all the protests and prayers of his family and friends, he sailed for Singapore, and thence across to the northwest coast of Borneo, landing at Kuching, on the Sarawak River, in 1838.

He had no clearly outlined plan of operations,--he was simply waiting his chance. The province of Sarawak, a dependency of the Sultan of Borneo, was governed by an old native rajah, whose authority was menaced by the fierce, head-hunting Dyaks of the interior. Brooke's chance had come. He boldly offered to put down the rebellion if the Rajah would make him his general and second to the throne. The Rajah cunningly accepted the offer, eager to let the hair-brained young infidel annoy his foes, but with no intention of keeping his promise.

After days of marching with his little crew and a small army of natives, through the almost impenetrable rubber jungles, after a dozen hard-fought battles and deeds of personal heroism, any one of which would make a story, the head-hunters were crushed and some kind of order restored. He refused to allow the Rajah to torture the prisoners,--thereby winning their grat.i.tude,--and he refused to be dismissed from his office. He had won his rank, and he appealed to the Sultan. The wily Sultan recognized that in this stranger he had found a man who would be able to collect his revenue, and much to Brooke's surprise, a courier entered Kuching, the capital, one day and summarily dismissed the native Rajah and proclaimed the young Englishman Rajah of Sarawak.