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We reached Permatang, another Chinese village of some pretensions and population, near which are two very large two-storied Malay houses in some disrepair, in which the wife of the banished Mentri of Larut lives, with a number of slaves. A quantity of mirthful-looking slave girls were standing behind the window bars looking at us surreptitiously. We alighted at the house of Mr.
A Mangrove Swamp Jungle Dwellers The Sempang Police Station Shooting Alligators The River Linggi A Somber-Faced Throng Stuck Fast at Permatang Pasir Fair Impediments January 24, 1 P.M. Mercury, 87 degrees.
The first thing I heard on arriving here was that a Chinese gang had waylaid a revenue officer in one of the narrow creeks, and that his hacked and mutilated body had drifted down to Permatang this morning. Mr. "How did you come?" "With the tuan," i.e., Mr. Maxwell. "How did you come with him?" "On the tail of his gray horse." "Where from?" "Changat-Jering."
Hayward had sent a canoe to this place with instructions to send another runner to the Resident; but "The best laid schemes of men and mice gang aft aglee." The messenger seemed to have served no other purpose than to assemble the whole male population of Permatang Pasir on the shore a sombre-faced throng, with an aloofness of manner and expression far from pleasing.
The harmless owl has strange superstitions attaching to it, and is called the "specter bird;" you may remember that the fear of encountering it was one of the reasons why the Permatang Pasir men would not go with us through the jungle to Rassa.
We sat down on one of the long matted platforms, which serve them for beds, and talked; but there was no hint of breakfast; and we soon learned that the Malacca runner had not reached the Residency at all, and that the note sent from Permatang Pasir, which should have been delivered at 1 A.M., had not been received till 8 A.M., so that Captain Murray had not been able to arrange for our transport, and had had barely time to ride down to meet us at such "full speed," as a swampy and partially made road would allow.
Shortly after finishing my last letter I left Taipeng with Mr. Maxwell, calling on our way to the coast at Permatang, to inquire if there were any scent of the murderers of the revenue officer, but there was none. The inspector said that he had seen many murdered bodies, but never one so frightfully mutilated.
Hayward's police attendant sat in front, all keeping their positions throughout the night as dutifully as the figures in a tableau vivant, and so we silently left Permatang Pasir for our jungle voyage of eighteen hours, in which time, by unintermitting hard work, we were propelled about as many miles, though some say twenty-nine.
The Linggi above Permatang Pasir, with its sharp turns and muddy hurry, is, I should say, from thirty to sixty feet wide, a mere pathway through the jungle.
Police Station, Permatang Pasir, Sungei Ujong, 5 P.M. We are now in a native State, in the Territory of the friendly Datu Klana, Syed Abdulrahman, and the policemen wear on their caps not an imperial crown, but a crescent, with a star between its horns. This is a far more adventurous expedition than we expected.
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