42 A JOURNEY ON FOOT TO THE PATANI FRONTIER. 
Patani guides went off at an early hour to try to get information 
in the neighbourhood as to the whereabouts of the fugitives. In 
the course of the morning Haji AsuBaKkar arrived, having lett 
Sayyid Maumup in his boat at Kwala Kendrong. He had heard 
before he saw me that we had made our attempt and had failed, 
and pursuit being out of the question as lone as we did not know 
tho direction taken by Maharaja Lena and his companions, philo- 
sophically occupied himself dining the day in conciliating our new 
acquaintances in the Ramp ong and actively reorgamising the com- 
missariat. Many of the villagers came to see me in the course of 
the day, each with a little offering of rice, fruits, or eggs, &c. They 
seemed sorry and ashamed that their reception of me on the day 
before had been so unfriendly, but explained the fact by saying 
that they were utterly unprepared for the sudden appearance of a 
white man and a body of armed followers, and suspected hostile 
intentions. They had received strict orders (sent through Siam) 
that they were not to receive any porsons from Perak into Patani 
territory, and had on this account already refused a passage to 
Sultan Ismari; they would, therefore, have sent us back again into 
the forest without any supplies if our numbers had been less 
formidable. 1 heard to-day an untortunate circumstance which 
had materially assisted in defeating my plans. We had happened 
to enter the kampong ona day fixed for afeast, given by the 
Penghulu in observance of the seventh day from the death of some 
near relation who had been drowned in descending the Berhala 
rapids. A buffalo had been killed and the people from several 
neighbouring villages had flocked in, when the ceremonies were 
brought to astandstiil by our arrival. Some of the slaves and 
followers of Maharaja Lena had been actually in the kampong when 
we arrived and had hastened at once to Kwala Kendrong to give 
the alarm. We were shewn the loads of padi in mat bags which 
they had been carrying home and which they had thrown down in 
the fields when hurrying off to warn their Chief. (I learned later 
that the person who actually carried the warning and enabled 
Maharaja Lena to escape us, was one Sreat, son of the Penghulu 
of Grik, a village close by: he was one of those invited to the feast 
and would not have beén at Kampong Padang on ordinary days.) 
