IN THE SWAMPS 171 



time to our own full equipment, from which none 

 of the other servants had been or ever were shrewd 

 enough to steal while he was on guard. Invar- 

 iably he presented a most aggrieved picture when, 

 after he had brought a stolen article to me, I 

 threatened him with a whipping unless he told 

 from whom he had stolen it, and set up a doleful 

 wail always when I made him put it back. I never 

 cured him, though I must say I punished him se- 

 verely at times : he did not appear to care to keep 

 the things he stole ; his pleasure was in outwitting 

 the other servants, and having done so could not 

 resist showing me the evidence, even though it 

 entailed a thrashing. But I never had so compe- 

 tent a servant, and it was with genuine regret I 

 had eventually to leave him in a hospital ill of a 

 fever he had contracted with me in the swamps, 

 and from which he never recovered. 



The road we travelled upon was an excellent one, 

 as all roads in English Protected Malay are, and 

 led us in three hours to a little fishing village where 

 lived Aboo Din, to whom I had been recommended, 

 and who extended to me the hospitality of his roof, 

 much to my surprise ; for the Malay is a Moham- 

 medan, and a Mohammedan is not usually pleased 

 to have a stranger within his gates. But the sur- 

 prise was an agreeable one to me, for although the 

 Malay presents the not always comforting anom- 



