58 RAJA AMBONG. 
only slept for three days andthree nights. If you really must 
speak to him you must get a furnace and heat a bar of iron 
red-hot and insert it in his ear as he lies asleep. This is the 
only way to wake him.” CHE ALANG did as he was told, 
and uncovering the sleeper’s head (he was enveloped in a 
thick patched quilt, gebar gandan saratus tampal) poked the 
red-hot iron into his ear. The sleeping man rolled over rub- 
bing the place a little, and CHE ALANG thrust the iron into 
the other ear. Then the crooked carpenter sat up, without 
opening his eyes (mata lagi jertkat) and said ‘curse those 
‘mosquitoes! A man can’t geta quiet sleep (me-radam) 
‘without being bothered by all kinds of insects.’ Then he 
went on to storm against his wife for not keeping the insects 
off while he slept, declaring that he would take a younger 
wife, and so on. This was too much for CHE ALANG, who 
burst out laughing, on which the crooked carpenter opened 
his eyes, and saw a young man, a stranger, before him. CHE 
ALANG quickly explained the object of his visit, and proposed 
that they should start together at once for Tanjong Bima. 
To this, however, the hunchback would not agree, and he 
sent CHE ALANG on ahead, promising to follow. Then with 
three terrific yells (der-tamptk telun temelun ber-turut-turut) 
he set out with the speed of the swiftest lightning, a stage 
at least ahead of the fastest breeze! In an incredibly short 
space of time he was at Tanjong Bima, and presented him- 
self at the Raja’s dalez, asking what he was wanted for. 
Raja AMBONG explained that his duty would be to build a 
boat, to be called Batara Saludang Mayang, out of the wood 
of the merdau tree, and was still conversing with the old man 
when CHE ALANG arrived and was not a little astonished to 
find the hunchback at the Court before him. Then the 
crooked carpenter demanded all the instruments of magic— 
sandal-wood, eagle-wood, and incense, a candle of a cubit’s 
length with a wick of the thickness of a man’s thumb, tepong 
tawar (holy water), parched rice, yellow rice, a mat and a 
carpet, an altar, andeight cubits of white cloth. All these 
things were provided by the female attendants in the palace 
- by the Raja’s orders, and taken out to the merdau tree on 
the enchanted plain, to which place the old man was duly 
