302 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



favors that it is hopelessly impossible for any but the wealthy 

 traveller to fully requite them. 



We left Malacca at 5 p.m. ; and at daybreak the next morning, 

 •were in a narrow strait which separates a chain of islands from the 

 mainland of the Malay Peninsula. I thought at first we were in a 

 river ; but after steaming smoothly along for a few miles we made 

 a turn toward the mainland, passed a stockade and a white house 

 on a point, showed our colors, and entered the mouth of the Eiver 

 EJang, two hundred miles from Singapore. 



Although this is the largest river in Selangore, it is only a hun- 

 dred and fifty yards wide at the mouth. The water is brown and 

 thick with mud, and looks bilious. The banks are low and swampy, 

 and covered with mangroves and nipa palms growing in the soft 

 mud. Twelve miles from the mouth, the ground suddenly rises 

 high and dry, and we come to Klang, the capital.* 



On a stretch of level ground about as large as a race course, 

 on the left bank, are about fifty gi'ay houses covered by roofs of 

 weather-beaten thatch. This is the town. Near the rather inse- 

 cure wharf stands a good-sized modern building of masonry, painted 

 white, which we know, instinctively, is the pubhc building of the 

 place, the court-house, treasui-y, post-ofiEice, and the like. Near 

 the river bank, just below the town, we see a smoothly shaven hill, 

 the top of which is encii'cled with a grassy earthwork and shallow 

 moat, minus water. There is a dusky sentry at the gate and two 

 others on the embankment, so that must be the fort. A short dis- 

 tance back of the fort, at the top of a higher hill, stands a spa- 

 cious and comfortable modern residence overlooking the town and 

 fort, as if to keep a watchful eye over all. This is the British 

 Residency, and it does not belie its looks. 



I went ashore with Mr. Hood and up to the fort, where he in- 

 troduced me to Mr. H. C. Syers, Superintendent of the police and 

 military force of the Territoi-y, who forthwith gave me a cordial in- 

 vitation to " put up " with him at his quarters in the fort. Find- 

 ing there was neither hotel nor boarding house in the town I ac- 

 cepted the offer with a sneaking sense of thankfulness that I was 

 really obliged to do so, for I hate hotel life. 



Mr. Syers and I became friends directly, for I greatly admired 

 his strength of character and he was not averse to the companion- 

 ship of one interested in shooting quite as much as himself. 



• The seat of government is now at Quallah Lumpor. 



