ON THE SELANGORE SEA-COAST. 303 



He was a character fit to do duty as the hero of a vigorous 

 romance, and I found great interest in drawing him out. He was 

 a young Enghshman from London, only a httle older than I, frank, 

 big-hearted, fearless as a hou-tamer, and tenacious as a bull-dog. 

 He had been a soldier in the British army, but purchased his dis- 

 charge in order to enter upon a wider field of usefulness in his 

 present position. No officer could be better fitted by nature to fill 

 a position than he to fill his. He has built up out of very suspi- 

 cious materials, and solely by his own efforts, the present military 

 force of Selangore, which is now well-armed and equipped, and 

 weU-drilled, and his grip upon the law-breaking element is so firm, 

 so severe, and so certain, that outbreaks are now extremely im- 

 probable. The -vigilance with which murderers are hunted down 

 and executed, has rendered crime of that sort very rare. 



From Klang I made one short shooting trip up the river, an- 

 other down it, and another into the hilly jungle back of the town, 

 aU of which were rather barren of results, I thought, and convinced 

 me that I must look elsewhere for good collecting ground. Sir. 

 Syers and I planned a trip into the ulterior after large game ; but 

 just then, the Resident, Captain Douglas, was in Singapore and 

 the execution of the plan had to be deferred till his return. Act- 

 ing on the information and advice of IMr. Syers, I packed up and 

 hired a Malav boat and crew to take me down the river, and thence 

 up the coast, about fifteen miles, to a little Malay hamlet Ciolled 

 Jerom. 



We started from Klang with the ebb tide, about two o'clock in 

 the afternoon, passed out at the mouth of the liver just at sunset, 

 and, hoisting our sail, to catch the gentle breeze, bore away up the 

 coast. We were soon clear of islands and on the ojDen sea. It was 

 a beautiful moonhght night, of the kind made especially for boat- 

 ing, and I think even the stolid INIalays enjoyed it. 



We reached Jerom at one o'clock, and aU the Malays went 

 ashoie while I slept in the boat until morning. I went to sleep 

 with the water patting the side of the boat and tumbling in tiny 

 breakers on the shore in front of the house, but when I awoke in the 

 morning all was still and silent as the grave. The boat lay helpless 

 upon the sand, and the sea had quietly stolen away from the shore, 

 leaving between itself and us a barren bank of mud and sand more 

 than half a mile wide. No wonder it was still. It was well for us 

 we made the shore during the high tide, for otherwise we would 

 have been compelled to wait several hours. 



