16 A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 
time about a piece of land. Mar Sateu was in possession, and defied 
any number of rival claimants. These took counsel together, and, 
with friends and sympathisers to the number of fifty, went off one day 
to surprise their opponent. They found him on the land in ques- 
tion engaged in some agricultural pursuit; his wife was also there 
helping him, and between two posts swung the cradle of the baby 
who, it was natural to suppose, could not well be left at home. 
The brave fifty advanced with shouts and threats looking on the 
land as already theirs, but Marv Sateu instead of flying peacefully 
rocked the cradle. No sooner had the first of the half hundred put 
his foot across the boundary than the anxious father put his hands 
into the cradle and lifted out, not a Malay baby, but a mighty 
blunderbuss with which he threatened to do for the first man who 
trespassed on his ground. The fifty aggressors, so the story ran, 
retired incontinently, none wishing to test the sincerity of the threat. 
“Therefore,” said the historian of the chronicles of this village hero, 
“was Mar Sauzu called ‘ Fifty,’ because fifty men went up against 
“him and returned without having accomplished anything!” Has1 
ABUBAKAR, the headman of my party, deserves a paragraph to 
himself. He was a good specimen of the native lawyer and politi- 
cian (I was nearly saying agitator, but well-to-do Malays are too 
imbued with Muhammadan solemnity of demeanour to agitate), 
one of a class created by English civilization and law courts. On 
the passive cunning of his race, many years of intercourse with 
Europeans and of loitering in the passages and verandahs of the 
Colonial Courts have grafted much worldly wisdom and not a little 
familiarity with business. A journey to Mecca gave him a title 
and a turban, and added polish to his manners. He had a fluent 
tongue and a lively imagination, knew the weaknesses of his country- 
men well, and was not slow to turn them to his own pecuniary 
advantage ; finally, he was one of the most original and entertaining 
companions I ever met with among Malays, though, I fear, he was 
not burdened with too much principle. ‘In base times,” says 
Lord Bacon, ‘‘active men are of more use than virtuous!” Lrppy 
AspuLt Manan was the Imam of the party, and led the devotions 
when any one could be persuaded to pray with him, which, I am 
afraid, was not often; with the Malay love for abbreviation, his 
friends generally spoke of him as Leppy Nay. So Munammap 
