THE DUTCH IN PERAK. 955 
The product of the Country thereabouts, besides Rice and other Eatables, 
is Tutaneg, a sort of Tin ; I think courser than ours. The Natives are Mala- 
yans, who, as I have always observed, are bold and treacherous: yet the 
Trading People are affable and courteous to Merchants. 
These are in all respects, as to their Religion, Custom, and manner of Liy- 
ing, like other Walayans. Whether they are governed by a King or Raja, or 
what other manner of Government they live under, I know not. They have 
Canoas and Boats of their own, and with these they fish and traffick among 
themselves: but the Tin Trade is that which has formerly drawn~ Merchant 
Strangers thither. But tho’ the Country might probably yield great quan- 
tities of this Metal, and the Natives are not only inclinable, but very desir- 
ous to trade with Strangers, yet are they now restrained by the Dutch, who 
have monopoliz’d that Trade to themselves. It was probably for the lucre of 
this Trade that the Dutch built the Fort on the Island; but this not wholly 
answering their ends, by reason of the distance between it and the Rivers 
mouth, which is about 4 or 5 Miles, they have also a Guard-ship commonly 
lying here, and a Sloop with 20 or 30 armed Men, to hinder other Nations 
Dampier, who visited this place in the year 1689, gives an accurate descrip- 
tion of it. Relying upon his known fidelity, we sought for the remains of the 
Dutch fort, and found it exactly as he described it. The brick walls are still 
standing after a lapse of one hunéred and thirty-two years; concealed, how- 
ever, from the first view, by the forest which was grown round them. The 
fort was merely a square building of masonry of about thirty feet to a 
side. A platform, about sixteen feet high, contained the guns and 
troops, and in the walls were eight round embrasures for cannon 
and sixteen loop-holes for fire-arms. The governor and officers’ apart- 
ments were in the upper-story. There was but one entrance to the 
fort, and this by a flight of steps towards the sea-side. Dampier tells 
us that the governor had a detached house near the sea, where he passed the 
day, but which, for security, he always abandoned for the fort at night; and 
accordingly we found, in the situation he mentions, the terrace on which the 
house in question stood, with fragments of broken bottles and coarse china- 
ware scattered here and there in its neighbourhood. The whole appear- 
ance of the place conveyed a very good picture of the state of alarm and dis- 
trust in which the garrison perpetually lived—the effect of the lawless and 
unprofitable object in which they were engaged.”—CRAWFURD’S “Journal of 
an Embassy to Siam and Cochin China,” p.p. 45-7. 
“ We enter the Strait of Dinding and stop to get water. Dinding isa low 
densely wooded hill range, having exactly the appearance of one of the South- 
erm ranges of Pinang. The rock is a large-grained granite ( spec ) which like 
most granites produces a soil favorable to natural jungle. The watering place 
is in the first cove on entering the strait. A path leads through the jungle, 
and a little way up the hill to a cool shady spot, where after scrambling over 
some mossy rocks the water is seen falling in a slender cascade in a small 
cave. This is said by the Malays to be the place where the Dutch had their 
factory and they spoke of a stone having a figure of a tiger cut on it. The 
strait is here landlocked on the North, but open to the South. On the land 
side there are two ranges of hills the inner about as high as the Dinding 
range. Proceeding up the strait, a deep cove is seen on the land side dividine 
the hills and exposing the distant mountams. At the extremity is the mouth 
of the river Dinding in which the To Kayo of Pera has lately established 
himself to work tin.’—LoGan: Journ. Ind. Arch., IV.,759. [LOGAN evidently 
did not see the ruins of the Dutch fort, which are, however, stil! there. ] 
