A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 5 
Krian, from the head of which we were to strike across country 
and gain the interior of the Peninsula. The Malays engaged for 
the expedition were all on board. and, including my one-armed ser- 
vant Masran, numbered exactly forty. By midday we reached 
Nibong Tabal, a large village on the right bank of the river. This 
was our frontier station before the recent accession to our terri- 
tory of a strip on the left bank of the river. The station isa 
substantial building surrounded by a loop-holed wall, a necessary 
precaution here, for the Kedah and Perak frontiers are close by 
and the Malays on the borders have never borne a good character. 
At Nibong Tabal we learned that only the night before our arrival 
a gang of Malays had attacked and robbed a house in the village 
and that one life had been lost in the affray. 
A short halt only was made at Nibong Tabal and then conti- 
nuing our journey up the river we passed the brick pillar which 
marks the British and Kedah boundary. Above the boundary pillar 
the Krian river divides jtwo Malay States—Kedah on the right 
bank and Perak on the left. 
Padang Lalang, the first halting place, was reached towards 
evening. Here four Malay boats awaited us, as the bed of the 
river is much obstructed higher up by fallen trees and sunken logs 
and is not navigable by craft of the size of the Mata Mata. ‘To 
them, men, baggage and arms were transferred, and during this 
process I landed on the Kedah bank of the river on a spot where 
the forest had been cleared at some time or other, and where a 
field of the coarse grass called lalang had taken its place. Fires 
were lighted and the evening meal was soon in course of prepara- 
tion ; at nightfall we were once more afloat. The Krian boatmen are 
skilful polers and know every bend of the river and every snag in 
it, so, notwithstanding the darkness, our progress was tolerably 
- rapid. My boat hada roof of palm thatch aft, under which my 
servant had made a luxurious bed of rugs and wraps. The regular 
splash of the poles, the tramp of the four boatmen along the light 
bamboo grating forward as they propelled their craft along, and 
the shouts of the look-out man in the bow as he gave voluble direc- 
tions to the steersman, were the only sounds that disturbed the 
stillness of the night and did not long interfere with my slumbers, 
March 25th. Morning found us stationary at the mouth of a 
