18 A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO TITE PATANI FRONTIER. 
country, when both Chiefs joined their fallen master. The Sri 
Adika Raja was at Batu Berdinding impressing the Patani peasants 
as labourers for the purpose of closing the pass to Ijuk by felling 
trees across the path, when he was surprised and killed by the 
scouts of the police expedition already mentioned. After this 
collision with the natives, the Police fell back on Teratah Dagong 
and the main obiect of the expedition, the capture of Ismarn, was 
abandoned.* The natives declared to me that the closing of the 
pass had no hostile signification, but was intended to prevent the 
escape of the Sultan’s elephants, some of which belonged to the ~ 
Tjuk district. 
After an hour’s rest at Batu Berdinding, all my followers having 
come up, we resumed our march to Kota Tampan under the gui- 
dance of the friendly Patani Penghulus. A good path led ina 
south-easterly direction through fields and hampongs, the Perak 
river being still shut out from view by a low ridge which gives the 
name Batu Berdinding (“the rock which forms a wall”) to the locality. 
The grave of the unfortunate Sri Adika Raja and a house be- 
longing to our late host, Wan ABupakar, at Bangul Blimbing, 
were the only objects of interest pointed out to us. Kota 'Tampan, 
which we reached in the afternoon, is asmall hill on the right bank 
of the Perak river, the value of which as a strategic position in 
Malay warfare is well known to the Ulu (up-country) Chiefs. It 
has often been stockaded and held by hostile parties in the little 
wars which Malay Chiefs wage with each other, but had never, I 
believe, been reached by any European before my visit. On the 
land side, the approach to the hill is hidden by thick brushwood, or 
protected by a little stream, Ayer Tampan, which runs into the 
Perak river just below. On the top of the knoll I found a neat 
* It was reported on their return that the Police expedition had cap- 
tured IsmatIn’s seventeen elephants, which, however, had somehow 
escaped from their captors! The Malays on the spot assured me that no 
such capture had been made, or any elephants seen by the force. It was 
officially reported, too, that Panpak Input (one of the men charged with 
the murder of Mr. Bircw) had been killed; but Panpax InpuT was 
captured several months later, and was subsequently executed for the 
murder. It would be unnecessary to refer to the elephant story, but for 
the fresh authority given to it by the gallant auther of “Sarong and 
Kris’’ (pp. 396, 405) who must have been misled, 
