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There is another important consideration which will affect the choice of routes and of means of conveyance, and that is the question of language. The natives in the big towns and all servants in hotels and private houses speak Malay, which is the official language for communication between them and the Europeans. There is always supposed to be one man in each native village (or campong) who can speak this language. Malay handbooks are published in Singapore, and although such books cannot be bought, as far as I know, in Batavia, they can often be borrowed; or, failing this, a few necessary phrases can be written down. Such a phrase, for example, as this: Apa nama ini? ("What is the name of this?") will serve to supply the place of many vocabularies. The language, which from its soft sounding has been called "the Italian of the Tropics," is very simple, and seems to consist almost exclusively of nouns (i.e. substantives, adjectives, and pronouns). The verb "to be" and prepositions are often omitted, e.g. Pighi bawa ini Tuan X = "Go [and] take this [to] Mr. X ;" and most substantives can be formed into verbs. Combinations of substantives are used; e.g. Kreta api ("fire-carriages") = "railway." Again, many European words are adopted bodily. In sadoe a Frenchman will easily recognize a corruption of dos-
The girl's father had not spoken since they discovered that she was missing from the campong, but his face was white and drawn; his eyes wide and glassy as those of one whose mind is on the verge of madness from a great nervous shock. The trail of the creature was bewilderingly erratic.
"Well, sir, they may be coming to see the review, but it don't look like it. There's a strong body of well-armed natives just the other side of the campong, and they may be friends or they may be enemies, but we have got to be ready for them, anyhow. You see, sir, it don't look right, because if they had been friends they would have been coming down the river in their boats.
"We know that the island is uninhabited by others than ourselves, and that there are no dangerous beasts. And, anyway, there is no one now who seems to care what becomes of me, unless unless I wonder if he does care. I wonder if I care whether or not he cares. Oh, dear, I wish I knew," and as she soliloquized she wandered past the little clearing and into the jungle that lay behind the campong.
A fleet of praus, with graceful masts of bending bamboo, surrounds the steamer, the aromatic cargo packed in long bamboo cases. The head-man of the campong, lightly attired in his native brown, with a few touches of contrasting colour in scarf and turban, acts as escort through a maze of weedy paths, and across bamboo bridges in various stages of dilapidation to a couple of dreary villages.
I would not go away now without giving the enemy a fair hearing for the good of all parties I would do it; and if the seriff liked to join me, as we proposed before, and wait for Seriff Moksain, good; if not, I would go in the boat to the campong.
On the following day, the British boats also took their way down the river, followed by the prahu, with a considerable number of Hassan's men, who were to clear away the ruins of Sehi's campong, to bury the dead still lying among them, and to erect huts for the whole community.
"Oh, bother!" The utterer of these two impatient words threw down a sheet of notepaper from which he had been reading, carefully smoothed out the folds to make it flat, and then, balancing it upon one finger as he sat back in a cane chair with his heels upon the table, gave the paper a flip with his nail and sent it skimming out of the window of his military quarters at Campong Dang, the station on the Ruah River, far up the west coast of the Malay Peninsula.
At sight of Sing's wrinkled old face Virginia Maxon sprang to her feet and ran forward to greet him, for she had been very fond of the shrewd and kindly Chinaman of whom she had seen so much during the dreary months of her imprisonment within the campong. "Oh, Sing," she cried, "where have you been? We were all so worried to think that no sooner was one of us rescued than another became lost."
"I'd finish off with that, sir," said Archie; "but I'd have every man out, and get up a thoroughly good sham-fight, burn plenty of powder, make everything as real as could be, and after plenty of firing and evolution, form in line and deliver a regular good charge." "Yes," said the Major, "there's something in that. But what's the good of doing it with only the people of the campong to look on?"
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