14 A. JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 
first through fields and clearings. As we approached the foot of 
the range the path was much obstructed by felled timber, and in 
some places, where the wood had been burned on the ground, was 
obliterated altogether. Indian corn and plantains, the first crops 
generally taken off new land by Malays, were growing luxuriantly, 
but their owners were invisible, probably from a fear of being 
impressed as baggage-carriers. At length the ascent was com- 
menced. “The thirty-three hills” is the name of a pass, not of a 
range. The range runs nearly North and South; we were travelling 
from West to Hast. The pass follows the course of the river Ijuk 
to its source; a ridge, Bukit Kubu, is then crossed and the water- 
shed of the Krian river is left behind. The streams further on 
run down to the river Perak. This is not the only pass where the 
Malays gravely assert that there are thirty-three hills to cross. To 
the East of Tasek in Province Wellesley there is a path over a low 
range of hills near the Kedah frontier by which Sardang, Mahang 
and Dingin (all in Kedah ) can be reached. Taking this route 
once, on the way to Salama, I was informed that there were thirty- 
three hills to climb and thirty-three rivers to wade, but these 
obstacles resolved themselves into the usual ups and downs of a 
mountain path, which repeatedly crossed and recrossei a moun- 
tain torrent. The use of the number thirty-three is perhaps 
referable to a much more remote origin than the caprice of Malay 
peasants. Malay folk-lore is deeply tinged with Hindu supersti- 
tions, the survival of a worship which must at one time have been 
established in Malay countries, though Islamism supplanted it six 
centuries ago. The heavens of the Hindus are populated by 
330,000,000 deities, though the origin of all is traceable to the 
three principal gods. Buddhism also affords instances of the use 
of the mystic number. Travellers in Japan will remember the 
temple of the 33,000 Buddhas. Ninety-nine, too, is a popular 
number. The river Dinding in Perak is credited locally with 
ninety-nine tributaries. Among Muhammadans there are ninety- 
nine names or epithets of God and the same number of names or 
titles of the Prophet. 
On the way to Perak from Tjuk we failed to identify the popular 
number of hills in the pass. I took down the names of twenty-six, 
however, from a guide who seemed to have a name for every rock 
