EDIBLE SWALLOW. 619 



with the shrieks and yells and invocations of the men and the 

 Borich, would still be heard 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 lifeless stone. The whole scene, indeed, 

 is a standing monument at once of the crime of inhos- 

 pitaUty 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 grey-headed patriarch appealed to by the new and rising 

 generation. Tears, 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 Semobbang having 

 flourished, become populous and rich, a young chief, the lineal 

 descendant of the little hungry boy, dreamed that great riches 

 were in store for him and his tribe if they went to Mount Si- 

 L&ioT, the petrified village. The next day a party was organ- 

 ized, and they went there and searched. They at last dis- 

 covered a magnificent cave. With lighted torches they entered, 

 and found it to be very extensive, and fuU 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 

 ' ialas ' (revenge). Thousands and thousands of birds'-nests 

 they brought out of the cave, which realized many reals to the 



