204 A NATURALISTS WANDERINGS 



this region ; but who they were and when they dwelt here is 

 absolutely shrouded in oblivion. 



During my stay in the Passumah lands, the news that I was 

 an Englishman spread far, and I was several times visited by 

 people from the Passumah. Ulu Manna district, which about 

 the year 1820 was under the rule of the English, having been 

 annexed to the East India Company's dominions when Sir 

 Stamford Eaffles held the Lieutenant-Governorship of Ben^ 

 coolen. The original document, formally recognising them as 

 "subjects of the Honourable Company, and entitled, to all the 

 privileges of that condition," was brought to me by the grandson 

 of one of the chiefs with whom the treaty was then concluded, 

 carefully preserved in a bamboo case. He had heard, he said, that 

 I was English, and he had come several days' journey to see 

 me, for he had heard both his grandfather and his father 

 tell of the greatness of the " orang Ingrisi" It was at least 

 flattering to one's national pride to find how deep a hold 

 their rule had taken on the gratitude of the peopile, when 

 those of the third generation had come to extol to one of their 

 countrymen their merciful and . just government, and with 

 wonderful, and of course e:^aggerated, tales of their liberality 

 and of the profuseness, richness, and grandeur of the Gover- 

 nor's court. One old fellow came arrayed in one of his most 

 precious heirlooms, the English-made coat, of his, grandfather, 

 of a purplish serge with steel-ring epaulets and with a curved 

 sabre bearing King George's monogram worked on the handle.' 

 He sadly bemoaned that the present Government had not con- 

 tinued to him the chieftainship of his father's marga, and with 

 the present Passirahs it was evidently a sore matter that they 

 received no pay from the Government, when under the English 

 rule they received seventy- five rupees a month (£75 sterling a 

 year), a great sum to, these people. I was very amused by the way 

 one Passirah showed me his official dress. The " Company,", 

 that is, the present government, for the designation still con- 

 tinues — " The Company gives me this " (' this ' with a most 

 contemptuous curl of the lips), as he exhibited his own alongside 

 the English uniform of his companion (the costume did not 

 really deserve such a curl) ; " and I have to pay five rupees for 

 this" (a narrow gold band on the right arm), "and five rupees 

 for this " (its fellow on the left), " and five for this ' (on the 



