A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 41 
he saw people running down to the river. An advance was imme- 
diately made and the house surrounded. No fugitives were in 
sight and none could have been seen. _ The only defenders of the 
place were three Malays armed with muskets, who stood at bay on 
the far side of a low platform used for drying grain. It is much 
to the credit of the Malays who were with me that these men were 
not shot. I had given orders on starting that no shot should be 
fired without express direction, but I had little hope that undis- 
eiplined men would obey them implicitly in a moment of excite- 
ment. The Mandheling men who had joined me at Tampan bran- 
dished their rifles and yelled to me to let them fire, and the three 
men opposite seemed for a second inclined to take the initiative 
themselves. But, though probably Maharaja Luna’s slaves or 
followers, they were not the men we were in search of, and a few 
words sent them off into the jungle unharmed, much to the dis- 
gust of some of my party. We then overhauled the house, which 
had evidently been very recently evacuated. One or two bundles 
of clothes hastily tied up for flight had been dropped outside and 
a few arms and some powder and bullets were secured. A path 
led down to the shinely bed of the river, but no boats or rafts were 
to be seen. The house stood quite alone, and there was nothing 
to shew what route the fugitives had taken. After a thorough 
search, therefore, we reluctantly turned back re tnfectd, and after 
another miserable walk through the pouring rain reached the 
inhospitable kampong which we had left a few hours before. A 
supply of rice had been obtained, and there was food for every- 
body, but none of the villagers came near us, and the depression 
consequent on failure was aggravated by the inclemency of the 
weather and the croaking of one or two of the guides who pro- 
phesied a night attack by the people of the kampong. | 
April 7th. Kampong Padang and its inhabitants improved upon 
better acquaintance. After last night’s rain the fields through 
which I walked in the morning were cool and glistening; teal flew 
up out of the ripe padi and gave prospect of sport; among the 
native, curiosity had evidently succeeded to fear, and my men were 
‘making acquaintances on all sides. We by no means gave up hope 
of gaining the object of our long journey, and Eram and the other 
