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Updated: May 10, 2025
So the days were passed in the little kampong under the gently swaying cocoanuts, and the little Malayan girl grew up like her companions, free and wild, with little thought beyond the morrow. That some day she was to be married, she knew; for since her first birthday she had been engaged to Mamat, the son of her father's friend, the punghulo of Bander Bahru.
The next island was a large one. The keeper said it was called Pulo Seneng, or Island of Leisure, and held a little kampong, or village of Malays, under an old punghulo, or chief, named Wahpering. We found, on nearing the verdure-covered island, that it looked much larger than it really was. The woods grew out into the sea for a quarter of a mile.
Still their lives are not unhappy. Their husbands are kind and sober, and they are never destitute. They have their families about them, and hear laughter and merriment from one sunny year to another. Busuk's father-in-law is dead now, and the last time I visited Bander Bahru to shoot wild pig, Mamat was punghulo, collecting the taxes and administering the laws.
It was a wonderful curry, made by one of the Sultan's own cooks; for the Punghulo Sahak spared no expense in the marriage of this, his last daughter, and a great feast is exceedingly honorable in the eyes of the guests. Busuk's long black hair had to be done up in a marvellous chignon on the top of her head.
The kampong might have been any other in the kingdom, and the little old weazened punghulo, who came bowing and smiling forward, might have been at the head of any one of a hundred other kampongs, they were all so much alike.
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