The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither

I >> Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop) >> The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither

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THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE AND THE WAY THITHER

BY ISABELLA L. BIRD (Mrs. Bishop)

PREFACE

In presenting to the public the last installment of my travels in the
Far East, in 1879, I desire to offer, both to my readers and critics, my
grateful acknowledgments for the kindness with which my letters from
Japan were received, and to ask for an equally kind and lenient estimate
of my present volume, which has been prepared for publication under the
heavy shadow of the loss of the beloved and only sister to whom the
letters of which it consists were written, and whose able and careful
criticism, as well as loving interest, accompanied my former volumes
through the press.

It is by her wish that this book has received the title of the "Golden
Chersonese," a slightly ambitious one; and I must at once explain that
my letters treat of only its western portion, for the very sufficient
reason that the interior is unexplored by Europeans, half of it being
actually so little known that the latest map gives only the position of
its coast-line. I hope, however, that my book will be accepted as an
honest attempt to make a popular contribution to the sum of knowledge of
a beautiful and little-traveled region, with which the majority of
educated people are so little acquainted that it is constantly
confounded with the Malay Archipelago, but which is practically under
British rule, and is probable destined to afford increasing employment
to British capital and enterprise.

The introductory chapter, and the explanatory chapters on Sungei Ujong,
Selangor and Perak, contain information of a rather more solid character
than is given in my sketches of travel, and are intended to make the
letters more intelligible and useful.* The map by Mr. Daly is the result
of the most recent surveys, and is published here by permission of the
Royal Geographical Society.
[*These chapters are based upon sundry reports and other official
papers, and I have largely drawn upon those storehouses of accurate and
valuable information, Newbold's "British Settlements in Malacca," and
Crawfurd's "Dictionary of the Indian Islands."]

As I traveled under official auspices, and was entertained at the houses
of officials everywhere, I feel it to be due to my entertainers to say
that I have carefully abstained from giving their views on any subjects
on which they may have uttered them in the ease of friendly intercourse,
except in two or three trivial instances, in which I have quoted them as
my authorities. The opinions expressed are wholly my own, whether right
or wrong, and I accept the fullest responsibility for them.

For the sketchy personal descriptions which are here and there given, I
am sure of genial forgiveness from my friends in the Malay Peninsula,
and from them also I doubt not that I shall receive the most kindly
allowance, if, in spite of carefulness, I have fallen into mistakes.

In writing to my sister my first aim was accuracy, and my next to make
her see what I saw; but beside the remarkably contradictory statements
of the few resident Europeans and my own observations, I had little to
help me, and realized every day how much truth there is in the dictum of
Socrates--"The body is a hindrance to acquiring knowledge, and sight and
hearing are not to be trusted."*
[*Phaedo of Plato. Chapter x.]

This volume is mainly composed of my actual letters, unaltered, except
by various omissions and some corrections as to matters of fact. The
interest of my visits to the prison and execution ground of Canton, and
of my glimpses of Anamese villages, may, I hope, be in some degree
communicated to my readers, even though Canton and Saigon are on the
beaten track of travelers.

I am quite aware that "Letters" which have not received any literary
dress are not altogether satisfactory either to author or reader, for
the author sacrifices artistic arrangement and literary merit, and the
reader is apt to find himself involved among repetitions, and a
multiplicity of minor details, treated in a fashion which he is inclined
to term "slipshod;" but, on the whole, I think that descriptions written
on the spot, even with their disadvantages, are the best mode of making
the reader travel with the traveler, and share his first impressions in
their original vividness. With these explanatory remarks I add my little
volume to the ever-growing library of the literature of travel.

I. L. B.
FEBRUARY, 1883

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

The Aurea Chersonesus--The Conquest of Malacca--The Straits
Settlements--The Configuration of the Peninsula--A Terra Incognita--
The Monsoons--Products of the Peninsula--The Great Vampire--Beasts
and Reptiles--Malignant and Harmless Insects--Land and Water Birds--
Traditions of Malay Immigration--Wild and Civilized Races--Kafirs--
The Samangs and Orang-outang--Characteristics of the Jakuns--
Babas and Sinkehs--The Malay Physiognomy--Language andLiterature--
Malay Poetry and Music--Malay Astronomy--Education and Law--Malay
Sports--Domestic Habits--Weapons--Slavery and Debt Bondage--
Government--"No Information"

Canton and Saigon, and whatever else is comprised in the second half of
my title, are on one of the best beaten tracks of travelers, and need
no introductory remarks.

But the Golden Chersonese is still somewhat of a terra incognita; there
is no point on its mainland at which European steamers call, and the
usual conception of it is as a vast and malarious equatorial jungle,
sparsely peopled by a race of semi-civilized and treacherous
Mohammedans. In fact, it is as little known to most people as it was to
myself before I visited it; and as reliable information concerning it
exists mainly in valuable volumes now out of print, or scattered
through blue books and the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of
Singapore, I make no apology for prefacing my letters from the Malay
Peninsula with as many brief preliminary statements as shall serve to
make them intelligible, requesting those of my readers who are familiar
with the subject to skip this chapter altogether.

The Aurea Chersonesus of Ptolemy, the "Golden Chersonese" of Milton,
the Malay Peninsula of our day, has no legitimate claim to an ancient
history. The controversy respecting the identity of its Mount Ophir
with the Ophir of Solomon has been "threshed out" without much result,
and the supposed allusion to the Malacca Straits by Pliny is too vague
to be interesting.

The region may be said to have been rediscovered in 1513 by the
Portuguese, and the first definite statement concerning it appears to
be in a letter from Emanuel, King of Portugal, to the Pope. In the
antique and exaggerated language of the day, he relates that his
general, the famous Albuquerque, after surprising conquests in India,
had sailed to the Aurea Chersonesus, called by its inhabitants Malacca.
He had captured the city of Malacca, sacked it, slaughtered the Moors
(Mohammedans) who defended it, destroyed its twenty-five thousand
houses abounding in gold, pearls, precious stones, and spices, and on
its site had built a fortress with walls fifteen feet thick, out of the
ruins of its mosques. The king, who fought upon an elephant, was badly
wounded and fled. Further, on hearing of the victory, the King of Siam,
from whom Malacca had been "usurped by the Moors," sent to the
conqueror a cup of gold, a carbuncle, and a sword inlaid with gold.
This conquest was vaunted of as a great triumph of the Cross over the
Crescent, and as its result, by the year 1600 nearly the whole commerce
of the Straits had fallen into the hands of the Portuguese.

Of the remaining "Moorish", or Malay kingdoms, Acheen, in Sumatra, was
the most powerful, so powerful, indeed, that its king was able to
besiege the great stronghold of Malacca more than once with a fleet,
according to the annalist, of "more than five hundred sail, one hundred
of which were of greater size than any then constructed in Europe, and
the warriors or mariners that it bore amounted to sixty thousand,
commanded by the king in person." The first mention of Johore, or Jhor,
and Perak occurs about the same time, Perak being represented as a very
powerful and wealthy State.

The Portuguese, by their persevering and relentless religious crusade
against the Mohammedans, converted all the States which were adjacent
to their conquests into enemies, and by 1641 their empire in the
Straits was seized upon by the Dutch, who, not being troubled by much
religious earnestness, got on very well with the Malay Princes, and
succeeded in making advantageous commercial treaties with them.

A curious but fairly accurate map of the coasts of the Peninsula was
prepared in Paris in 1668 to accompany the narrative of the French
envoy to the Court of Siam, but neither the mainland nor the adjacent
islands attracted any interest in this country till the East India
Company acquired Pinang in 1775, Province Wellesley in 1798, Singapore
in 1823, and Malacca in 1824. These small but important colonies were
consolidated in 1867 into one Government under the Crown, and are now
known as the Straits Settlements, and prized as among the most valuable
of our possessions in the Far East. Though these settlements are merely
small islands or narrow strips of territory on the coast, their
population, by the census of 1881, exceeded four hundred and twenty-two
thousand souls, and in 1880 their exports and imports amounted to
32,353,000 pounds!

Besides these little bits of British territory scattered along a
coast-line nearly four hundred miles in length, there are, on the west
side of the Peninsula, the native States of Kedah, Perak, Selangor, and
Sungei Ujong, the last three of which are under British "protection;"
and on the east are Patani, Kelantan, Tringganu, and Pahang; the
southern extremity being occupied by the State of Johore. The
interior, which is scarcely at all known, contains toward its centre
the Negri Sembilan, a confederation of eight (formerly nine) small
States. The population of the native States of the Peninsula is not
accurately known, but, inclusive of a few wild tribes and the Chinese
immigrants, it is estimated at three hundred and ten thousand; which
gives under nine inhabitants to the square mile, the population of the
British settlements being about four hundred and twenty to the square
mile.

The total length of the Peninsula is eight hundred miles, and its
breadth varies from sixty to one hundred and fifty miles. It runs down
from lat. 13 degrees 50' N. to 1 degree 41' N. The northern part,
forming the Isthmus of Kraw, which it is proposed to pierce for a ship
canal, runs nearly due north and south for one hundred and forty miles,
and is inhabited by a mixed race, mainly Siamese, called by the Malays
Sansam. This Isthmus is under the rule of Siam, which is its northern
boundary; and the northern and eastern States of Kedah, Patani,
Kelantan, Pahang, and Tringganu, are more or less tributary to this
ambitious empire, which at intervals has exacted a golden rose, the
token of vassalage, from every State in the Peninsula. Except at the
point where the Isthmus of Kraw joins Siam, the Peninsula is surrounded
by the sea to the east by the China Sea and the Gulf of Siam, and to
the south and west by the Straits of Malacca and the Bay of Bengal. The
area of the mainland is conjectured to be the same as that of Britain,
but the region occupied by the Malays does not exceed sixty-one
thousand one hundred and fifty square miles, and is about half the size
of Java.

Its configuration is not very well known, but a granitic mountain
chain, rising in Perak to ascertained heights of eight thousand feet,
runs down its whole length near the centre, with extensive outlying
spurs, and alluvial plains on both sides densely covered with jungle,
as are also the mountains. There are no traces of volcanic formation,
though thermal springs exist in Malacca. The rivers are numerous, but
with one exception small, and are seldom navigable beyond the reach of
the tides, except by flat-bottomed boats. It is believed that there are
scarcely any lakes.

The general formation is granitic, overlaid by sandstone, laterite or
clay ironstone, and to the north by limestone. Iron ores are found
everywhere, and are so little regarded for their metallic contents
that, though containing, according to Mr. Logan, a skillful geologist,
sixty percent of pure metal, they are used in Singapore for
macadamizing the roads! Gold has been obtained in all ages, and
formerly in considerable quantities, but the annual yield does not now
exceed nineteen thousand ounces. The vastest tin fields in the world
are found in the western Malay States, and hitherto the produce has
been "stream tin" only, the metal not having been traced to its veins
in the rock.

The map, the result of recent surveys by Mr. Daly, and published in
1882 by the Royal Geographical Society, shows that there is a vast
extent, more than half of the Malay Peninsula, unexplored. Its most
laborious explorer confesses that "of the internal government,
geography, mineral products, and geology of these regions, we do not
know anything," and, he adds, that "even in this nineteenth century, a
country rich in its resources, and important through its contiguity to
our British possessions, is still a closed volume." "If we let the
needle in, the thread is sure to follow" (meaning that if they let an
Englishman pass through their territories, British annexation would be
the natural sequence), was the reason given to Mr. Daly for turning him
back from the States of the Negri Sembilan.

The climate is singularly healthy for Europeans as well as natives,
although both hot and moist, as may be expected from being so close to
the equator. Besides, the Peninsula is very nearly an insular region;
it is densely covered with evergreen forests, and few parts of it are
more than fifty miles from the sea. There are no diseases of climate
except marsh fevers, which assail Europeans if they camp out at night
on low, swampy grounds.

In 5 degrees 15' N., about the latitude of the northern boundary of
Perak, at the sea-level the mean annual temperature is nearly 80
degrees, with a range of 20 degrees; at Malacca in 2 degrees 14' N. it
is 80 degrees, with a range of 15 degrees; and at Singapore, in lat. 1
degree 17', it is 82 degrees, with a range of 24 degrees. Though the
climate is undeniably a "hot" one, the heat, tempered by alternating
land and sea breezes, is seldom oppressive except just before rain, and
the thermometer never attains anything approaching those torrid
temperatures which are registered in India, Japan, the United States,
and other parts of the temperate zones.

The rainfall is not excessive, averaging about one hundred and ten
inches annually, and there is no regular rainy season. In fact it rains
in moderation all the year round. Three days seldom pass without
refreshing showers, and if there are ten rainless days together, a rare
phenomenon, people begin to talk of "the drought." Practically the year
is divided into two parts by the "monsoons."* The monsoon is not a
storm, as many people suppose, from a vague association of the word
"typhoon," but a steady wind blowing, in the case of the Malay
Peninsula, for six months from the north-east, bringing down the
Chinamen in their junks, and for six months from the southwest,
bringing traders from Arabia and India. The climate is the pleasantest
during the north-east monsoon, which lasts from October to April. It is
during the south-west monsoon that the heavier rains, accompanied by
electrical disturbances, occur. The central mountain range protects the
Peninsula alternately from both monsoons, the high Sumatran mountains
protecting its west side from the south-west winds. The east side is
exposed for six months to a modified north-east monsoon. Everywhere
else throughout the almost changeless year, steadily alternating land
and sea breezes with gentle variable winds and calms prevail,
interrupted occasionally on the west coast during the "summer" by
squalls from the south-west, which last for one or two hours, and are
known as "Sumatrans." Hurricanes and earthquakes are unknown. Drenching
dews fall on clear nights.
[*This word is recognized as a corruption by Portuguese and British
tongues of the Arabic word "musim," "season."]

The Peninsula is a gorgeous tropic land, and, with its bounteous
rainfall and sunshine, brings forth many of the most highly prized
productions of the tropics, with some that are peculiar to itself. Its
botany is as yet very imperfectly known. Some of its forest trees are
very valuable as timber, and others produce hard-veined woods which
take a high polish. Rattans, Malacca canes, and gutta are well known as
among its forest products; gutta, with its extensive economical uses,
having been used only for Malay horsewhips and knife-handles previous
to 1843. The wild nutmeg is indigenous, and the nutmeg of commerce and
the clove have been introduced and thrive. Pepper and some other spices
flourish, and the soil with but a little cultivation produces rice wet
and dry, tapioca, gambier, sugar-cane, coffee, yams, sweet potatoes,
cocoa, sago, cotton, tea, cinchona, india rubber, and indigo. Still it
is doubtful whether a soil can be called fertile which is incapable of
producing the best kinds of cereals. European vegetables are on the
whole a dismal failure. Conservatism in diet must be given up by
Europeans; the yam, edible arum, and sweet potato must take the place
of the "Irish potato," and water-melons and cucumbers that of our peas,
beans, artichokes, cabbages, and broccoli. The Chinese raise coarse
radishes and lettuce, and possibly the higher grounds may some day be
turned into market gardens. The fruits, however, are innumerable, as
well as wholesome and delicious. Among them the durion is the most
esteemed by the natives, and the mangosteen by Europeans.

The fauna of the Peninsula is most remarkable and abundant; indeed,
much of its forest-covered interior is inhabited by wild beasts alone,
and gigantic pachyderms, looking like monsters of an earlier age, roam
unmolested over vast tracts of country. Among this thick-skinned family
are the elephant, the one-horned rhinoceros, the Malayan tapir, and the
wild hog; the last held in abomination by the Malays, but constituting
the chief animal food of some of the wild tribes.

A small bear with a wistful face represents the Plantigrade family. The
Quadrumana are very numerous. There are nine monkeys, one, if not two
apes, and a lemur or sloth, which screens its eyes from the light.

Of the Digitigrada there are the otter or water-dog, the musang and
climbing musang, the civet cat, the royal tiger, the spotted black
tiger, in whose glossy raven-black coat the characteristic markings are
seen in certain lights; the tiger cat, the leopard, the Java cat, and
four or five others. Many of these feline animals abound.

Among the ruminants are four species of deer, two smaller than a hare,
and one as large as an elk; a wild goat similar to the Sumatran
antelope; the domestic goat, a mean little beast; the buffalo, a great,
nearly hairless, gray or pink beast, bigger than the buffalo of China
and India; a short-legged domestic ox, and two wild oxen or bisons,
which are rare.

The bat family is not numerous. The vampire flies high, in great
flocks, and is very destructive to fruit. This frugiverous bat, known
popularly as the "flying fox," is a very interesting-looking animal,
and is actually eaten by the people of Ternate. At the height of the
fruit season, thousands of these creatures cross from Sumatra to the
mainland, a distance never less than forty miles. Their strength of
wing is enormous. I saw one captured in the steamer Nevada, forty-five
miles from the Navigators, with wings measuring, when extended, nearly
five feet across. These are formed of a jet black membrane, and have a
highly polished claw at the extremity of each. The feet consist of five
polished black claws, with which the bat hangs on, head downward, to
the forest trees. His body is about twice the size of that of a very
large rat, black and furry underneath, and with red foxy fur on the
head and neck. He has a pointed face, a very black nose, and prominent
black eyes, with a remorseless expression in them. An edible bat of
vagrant habits is also found.

Ponies are imported from Sumatra, and a few horses from Australia, but
the latter do not thrive.

The domestic cat always looks as if half his tail had been taken off in
a trap. The domestic dog is the Asiatic, not the European dog, a leggy,
ugly, vagrant, uncared-for fellow, furnishing a useful simile and
little more.

Weasels, squirrels, polecats, porcupines, and other small animals exist
in numbers, and the mermaid, of the genus Halicore, connects the
inhabitants of the land and water. This Duyong, described as a
creature seven or eight feet long, with a head like that of an elephant
deprived of its proboscis, and the body and tail of a fish, frequents
the Sumatran and Malayan shores, and its flesh is held in great
estimation at the tables of sultans and rajahs. Besides these (and the
list is long enough) there are many small beasts.

The reptiles are unhappily very numerous. Crawfurd mentions forty
species of snakes, including the python and the cobra. Alligators in
great numbers infest the tidal waters of the rivers. Iguanas and
lizards of several species, marsh-frogs, and green tree-frogs abound.
The land-leeches are a great pest. Scorpions and centipedes are
abundant. There are many varieties of ants, among them a formidable-
looking black creature nearly two inches long, a large red ant, whose
bite is like a bad pinch from forceps, and which is the chief source of
formic acid, and the termes, or white ant, most destructive to timber.

The carpenter beetle is also found, an industrious insect, which
riddles the timber of any building in which he effects a lodgment, and
is as destructive as dry rot. There are bees and wasps, and hornets of
large size, and a much-dreaded insect, possibly not yet classified,
said to be peculiar to the Peninsula, which inflicts so severe a wound
as to make a strong man utter a cry of agony. But of all the pests the
mosquitoes are the worst. A resident may spend some time in the country
and know nothing from experience of scorpions, centipedes,
land-leeches, and soldier ants, but he cannot escape from the mosquito,
the curse of these well-watered tropic regions. In addition to the
night mosquito, there is a striped variety of large size, known as the
"tiger mosquito," much to be feared, for it pursues its bloodthirsty
work in the daytime.

Among the harmless insects may be mentioned the cicada, which fills the
forest with its cheery din, the green grasshopper, spiders, and flies
of several species, dragon-flies of large size and brilliant coloring,
and butterflies and moths of surpassing beauty, which delight in the
hot, moist, jungle openings, and even surpass the flowers in the glory
and variety of their hues. Among them the atlas moth is found,
measuring from eight to ten inches across its wings. The leaf insects
are also fascinating, and the fire-flies in a mangrove swamp on a
dark, still night, moving in gentle undulations, or flashing into
coruscations after brief intervals of quiescence, are inconceivably
beautiful.

The birds of the Peninsula are many and beautiful. Sun-birds rival the
flashing colors of the humming-birds in the jungle openings;
king-fishers of large size and brilliant blue plumage make the river
banks gay; shrieking paroquets with coral-colored beaks and tender
green feathers, abound in the forests; great, heavy-billed hornbills
hop cumbrously from branch to branch, rivaling in their awkward gait
the rhinoceros hornbills; the Javanese peacock, with its gorgeous tail
and neck covered with iridescent green feathers instead of blue ones,
moves majestically along the jungle tracks, together with the ocellated
pheasant, the handsome and high-couraged jungle cock, and the glorious
Argus pheasant, a bird of twilight and night, with "a hundred eyes" on
each feather of its stately tail.

According to Mr. Newbold, two birds of paradise (Paradisea regia and
Paradisea gularis) are natives of the Peninsula,* and among other
bright-winged creatures are the glorious crimson-feathered pergam, the
penciled pheasant, the peacock pheasant, the blue pheasant partridge,
the mina, and the dial bird, with an endless variety of parrots,
lories, green-feathered pigeons of various sizes, and wood-peckers.
Besides these there are falcons, owls, or "spectre birds," sweet-voiced
butcher birds, storks, fly-catchers, and doves, and the swallow which
builds the gelatinous edible nest, which is the foundation of the
expensive luxury "Bird's Nest Soup," frequents the verdant islands on
the coast.
[*Mr. Newbold is ordinarily so careful and accurate that it is almost
presumptuous to hint that in this particular case he may not have been
able to verify the statements of the natives by actual observation.]

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