90 THE HISTORY OF PERAK FROM NATIVE SOURCES. 
to the bank. After a few days the Semangs (Perak was not yet 
populated by Malays) came down from their hills to buy salt. They 
came loaded with the produce of their gardens—sugar-canes, plantains 
and edible roots—and brought their wives and families with them. 
“A Semang girl, while her father was bargaining at the boat, 
took up a sugar-cane and commenced to strip off the rind with a 
knife; in doing so she accidentally cut her hand. Blood issued 
from the wound, but what was the astonishment of all around her 
when they saw that its colour was not red but pure white! A re- 
port of this prodigy quickly spread from mouth to mouth, and 
Nakhodah Kasim landed from his boat to see it with his own eyes, 
Tt occurred to him that this was a family not to be lost sight of, he 
loaded the father with presents. and, in a month’s time, by dint of 
constant attentions, he had so far won the confidence of the shy 
Semangs that he was able to ask for the girl in marriage. The 
father agreed and Nakhodah Kasim and his wife settled at Kuala 
Tumung, where they built a house and planted fruit-trees. 
‘Now, the Perak river overflows its banks once a year, and 
sometimes there are very great floods. Soon after the marriage of 
Nakhodah Kasim with the white Semang, an unprecedented flood 
occurred and quantities of foam came down the river. Round the 
piles of the bathing-house; which, in accordance with Malay custom, 
stood in the bed of the river close to the bank in front of the 
house, the floating volumes of foam collected in a mass the size 
f an elephant. Nakhodah Kasrm’s wife went to bathe, and find- 
ing this island of froth in her way she attempted to move it away 
with a stick; she removed the upper portion of it and disclosed a 
female infant sitting in the midst of it enveloped all round with 
cloud-like foam. The child showed no fear and the white Semang, 
carefully lifting her, carried her up to the house, heralding her 
discovery by loud shouts to her husband. The couple adopted the 
child willingly, for they had no children, and they treated her 
thenceforward as their own. They assembled the villagers and 
wave them a feast, col eine announcing their adoption of the 
daughter of the river and their intention of leaving to her every- 
thing that they possessed. 
“The child was called Tan Puten, but her father gave her the 
