214 JIN ABU FINDS 



sampan and there spent my days as well as my 

 nights. 



The Chinamen were of just the ordinary patient, 

 stolid, plodding John type; but the Malays, so I 

 was given to understand, were distinguished gen- 

 tlemen, chosen by the Sultan, he informed me, as 

 fitted to serve so " distinguished a traveller-hun- 

 ter.'' His Majesty possessed the true Oriental 

 tongue. Certainly the Malays looked the part, for 

 they came to me on the morning of departure each 

 attended by a bearer carrying the paraphernalia 

 which goes with betel-nut chewing. Every man 

 of them had at least one kris stuck inside of his 

 sarong at the waist, two in addition had tumbuk 

 ladas, and one carried a spear which bore an elab- 

 orately chased six-inch broad silver band bound 

 around the business end of the four-foot shaft. 

 I had no objection to the armory, but drew the 

 line on the servitors; so after an argument which 

 involved us all morning, and dragged the Sultan 

 from across the river, and the Controller from his 

 noon nap— we headed up river with the betel-nut 

 bearers of my high-born servants standing on 

 the bank. 



For two weeks, always up stream, we worked 

 our way from river to river, each precisely like 

 the other in its garnet-colored water and palm- 

 studded sides; each narrower and of swifter cur- 



