THROUGH THE MALAY JUNGLE 27 



ing it : he was a wonderful piece of brainless, heart- 

 less mechanism, wound up to go until forcibly 

 stopped ; that was his purpose, his duty, his whole 

 function, and he was fulfilling it to the letter, going 

 on straight until ordered to cease, as unconcerned 

 with the why and the wherefore of the matter as 

 a bullock drawing a cartload of stones. When I 

 stopped him and shouted despairingly, " Rest- 

 house, hotel, rest-house!" he grinned as compre- 

 hensively as before and changed his course ; when I 

 expressed my opinion of him in the choicest and 

 strongest words at my command, he beamed appre- 

 ciatively, and obediently started off in still another 

 direction. Under the circumstances I was at the 

 time unable to appreciate the humor of the situa- 

 tion. But the matter ended happily: for after an 

 hour or more of aimless wandering, we happened 

 by good luck to pass a police-station, where the 

 word " rest-house" was understood, and my coolie, 

 after an ostentatious dressing-down by the little 

 Malay policeman, was directed thither. Wheeler 

 and Perry, I found, had both enjoyed exactly the 

 same experience as myself. 



Kwala Kangsar, the capital of Perak, was reached 

 some days later, the dato, or headman of the town, 

 who had been apprised of our arrival, receiving us 

 with great cordiality and escorting us to the rest- 



