636 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



the boom of the thunder and the crackling of the houses. Not a 

 man, woman, or child — no, nor even visitor — at that fatal village, 

 save only the neglected boy, was left alive to mourn the loss of 

 his all. One after another they all melted, and were changed, 

 when the heat of the storm was over, into solid rock. Houses, 

 and all in them, succumbed beneath the fiery elements; and 

 when the storm ceased, all lay, not a heap of charred ruins, but 

 huge masses of smoking stone. 



"A hill with precipices now marks the spot where this tragedy 

 occurred; on the hill (itself the transformed village) are still 

 pointed out, if people speak truth, the traces of the petrified houses. 

 An upright rock is shown as the transformed figure of a Malay, 

 an unhappy visitor on that awful day. There he stands with his 

 hand still fixed on his sword-hilt, once a living soul, now a life- 

 less stone. The whole scene, indeed, is a standing monument at 

 once of the crime of inhospitality and its fearful punishment. 

 Gazing on his revenge, the youth retreated. He returned to his 

 native village, Semabang ; and time flew on, and ere he died he 

 was the chief of his tribe, the gray-headed patriarch appealed to 

 by the new and rising generation. Years, hundreds of years 

 rolled away, fathers and mothers passed off the stage, and young- 

 children grew up to take their places, to attain manhood, to work, 

 to become old, to die too ; and so time went on, and children 

 danced and played over the same ground that their ancestors had 

 danced and played on for centuries before. 



"At last, no great time ago, the tribe of Semabang having flour- 

 ished, become populous and rich, a young chief, the lineal de- 

 scendant of the little hungry boy, dreamed that great riches were 

 in store for him and his tribe if they went to Mount Si-Lebor, the 

 petrified village. The next day a party was organized, and they 

 went there and searched. They at last discovered a magnificent 

 cave. With lighted torches they entered, and found it to be very 

 extensive, and full of the celebrated edible birds'-nests. ' Ah !' 

 said they, ' this is our portion, instead of that which was denied to 

 our ancestor ; his due was refused then, it has now been given to 

 us, his descendants ; this is our ' balas 1 (revenge). Thousands and 

 thousands of birds'-nests they brought out of the cave, which re- 

 alized many reals to the discoverers. The Si-Lebor caves are now 

 said to be the richest, and the tribes possessing them (the Sema- 

 bang youth's descendants) the wealthiest and most prosperous in 

 Sadonef." 



