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Updated: June 23, 2025
This case had excited considerable interest, and X. had made a triumphant exit, as he drove away from the court with portions of charred wardrobe packed in behind. During the present journey there were no sparks, and the coast was reached without any incident which might promise litigation. The party consisting of X., Usoof and Abu, embarked on the s.s.
For almost the entire length of this ascent the view was so glorious that the traveller continued to exclaim in wonder to his companion to stop and look. Usoof who, as has been related, was a native of the country, affected to gaze at it with the unconcern of a proprietor, merely reminding his master that he had always said, that his was a very fine country.
Returning to the publicity of his apartment, X. was met by Usoof and Abu, both with very long faces and evidently in considerable distress. On being interrogated it transpired that they had nowhere to bathe. Now to bathe, and bathe constantly, is as necessary to a Malay as are regular meals to a European.
But the procession grew and grew, as one by one the fond relations hurried after it for one more glimpse or one more word for the departing brother. Then the traveller began to feel as near a brute as ever in his life before, and suggested to Usoof that he should bid him good-bye and return for good to the bosom of his weeping family.
Presently the red roofs of a village were in sight, and once more the voice of Usoof spoke to introduce his birthplace. This was interesting, as was the additional information that the little river they had now to cross was the boundary of his ancestral land. The house they had come all this way to see was deep in the shadow of countless fruit trees, over which towered palms of considerable age.
And this stranger told them of the Malays and his life amongst them, and how their houses and customs resembled theirs, while Usoof, alone venturing to remain upright, acted as interpreter as a swarm of young brown relations clasped his hands and ruthlessly robbed him of his watch and chain, his brass buttons, and all the loose coins in his pockets.
As it was, he only replied that he was inured to fever and did not mind. At that time he had no particular reason for going to one place more than another, and therefore the one which drove him in this direction was good enough to serve his purpose. Usoof desired to commence the search for his mother.
Usoof and Abu were not a little terrified by this awful experience, and grasped their Tuan by the arm entreating him not to venture near what, they evidently thought, were the gates of hell.
But as Usoof still kept silence X. rashly thought he had gained an easy victory, and airily added, "All right, you must make the best of it and go to the canal." Then the reserved remarks found vent, "Was the Tuan aware that all the women in the place bathed there?"
However, he could not but believe that he helped to fill in that vacant blank in which the sitters sank, as he passed along, himself clad in wondrous garments made of gaudy silks woven by the skilled natives of the Peninsula, while Usoof and Abu followed, bringing the towels and soap.
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