40° A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 
all. ~‘Phe minds of the villagers were set at ease when I offered to 
write a letter then and there to their Chief, Tuan Prang, who lived 
at Kernei a few miles off, and while the letter was being written. 
by. Lespy Naw in the Penghulu’s house, a house was cleared out 
for our reception. It was not a very big one, and was not given 
very willingly. The suggestion that we should have to appropri- 
ate the Penghulu’s house and help ourselves to provisions, if quar. 
ters and rice were not forthcoming, probably had something to do 
with the eventual compliance with both demands. I had anticipa- 
ted no difficulty with the natives of this part of the country, having 
experienced so much attention and kindness from Patani Malays 
in Perak, and the delay at Kampong Padang was a great annoy- 
ance and disappointment. An understanding with the people of 
the place was, however, essential before I could safely divide our 
party and leave our baggage there. About two hours were thus 
wasted, but after the letter to Tuan Prang had been written, signed 
and handed over to Penghulu Lupin for delivery, I left a party to 
look after the arrangement of quarters and the bestowal of bag... 
gage and went on with twenty picked men to Kwala Kendrong. 
A good path led along the bank of the Kendrong river, and this’ 
we followed in single file, two men and Cue Mar Att, a Patani 
‘guide, preceding me. As we neared the Perak river, into which the - 
Kendrong flows, the guide pointed out a path which turned off to - 
the right, and said that Maharaja Lexa’s retreat lay in that direc- 
tion. By this time it had commenced to rain in torrents; we had 
not met a soul in the path, and I had every hope.of reaching the 
house unperceived. We went on silently until only a turn of the 
path concealed us from a house which we could distinctly see 
through the bamboos. It was an admirable hiding place and an 
exceedingly pretty spot. A small hill sloped down sheer to the 
water’s edge and was clothed from base to summit with the large 
bamboo, except where a small clearing had been made and plan- 
tains and Indian corn had been planted. Two or three men crept 
forward to reconnoitre and returned saying: that they had seen 
three men with muskets, but. that none of them were the men we. 
-_wanted. Suddenly a-man~ behind: (I found- out afterwards that: 
-he was one of Kunve Mo#aiixep’s Perak men ) shouted out that 
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