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Updated: May 7, 2025
The houses of the Indian and Mestizo population are for the most part in the outskirts of the business part of the town, those of the richer sort being built of stone, and those of the poorest class being composed of nipa, or attap.
A gray lizard darted from out its hiding-place in the attap at a great atlas moth which worked its brilliant wings; clumsily it tore their delicate network until the air was full of a golden dust. "I am the moth," she said softly, and raised her hand too late to save it from its enemy.
He was rudely thrust forward, and then half dragged, half carried up the rough steps, some of which were broken away, and then pushed into the great centre room of what had been a large Malay house. It was very dark, for the holes in the roof had become choked with creepers, which had formed a new thatch in place of the old attap top.
Perak is the land of palms, and produces the invaluable cocoa-palm, most parts of which have their commercial value, the areca palm which produces the betel-nut, the gomuti palm from whose strong black fibres they make ropes, cordage, and strands for capturing the alligator; the jaggary-palm, from which sugar is made, as well as a fermented beverage; the nibong palm, which grows round the Malay kampong, and is used for their gridiron floors and for the posts of their houses; the dwarf-palms which serve no other purpose than to gladden the eyes by their beauty; and the nipah palm which fringes the rivers, and, under the name of attap, forms the thatch of both native and foreign houses.
Possibly it was the sight of the white ladies from Singapore, possibly it was the few light words dropped by the half-grown Prince, possibly it was something within herself, something inherited from ancestors who had lived when the fleets of Solomon and Hiram sought for gold and ivory at the base of the distant mountains, that drove her to revolt, and led her to question the right of this marriage that was to seal her forever to the attap bungalow, and the narrow, colorless life that awaited her on the banks of the Maur.
Panting heavily, Ali started up, but the gleam was about him still, for the bright rays of the morning sun were shining down through the attap roof, and with a moan of misery he sank back once more on finding that he had been overcome by weariness, and that this last painful episode was only a dream. And his friends that he meant to save what of them?
For the plashing of poles reached his ears, and the dark form of a good-sized sampan came round a curve, with its attap awning glistening softly like dead silver in the moonlight. The sentry waited in the shade of the hut till the boat came nearer, and then challenged, when a familiar voice responded: "That you, Peter Pegg?" "Mister Archie, sir! Yes, sir." "It's all right.
Our blue chamber overlooked the attap roofs of a long row of houses, badly disfigured by the stains and wear of many a wet season, in which our next neighbor, a Mohammedan of patriarchal aspect and demeanor, stored bags of sugar, waiting for a rise in the market.
We are beyond the little territory of Malacca, but this bit of land was ceded to England after the "Malay disturbances" in 1875, and on it has been placed the Sempang police station, a four-roomed shelter, roofed with attap, a thatch made of the fronds of the nipah palm, supported on high posts an idea perhaps borrowed from the mangrove and reached by a ladder.
I carried him to the easy-chair at the other end of the veranda, and he lay down confidingly on my arm, looking up with a bewitching, pathetic face, and murmuring sweetly "Ouf! Ouf!" He has scarcely left me since, except to go out to sleep on the attap roof. He is the most lovable, infatuating, little semi-human creature, so altogether fascinating that I could waste the whole day in watching him.
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