OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 183 



More recently Timku Dia Udix and the Klana of Sungei 

 I T jong have asked for and obtained British Eesidents, expressing 

 in each case their desire to defray the expenses of these Officers. 



There is now a Resident in Perak, and an Assistant Resident 

 in Larut. 



Nothing has occurred in Larut of any importance since 

 January, 1874, but the country has been carefully worked up to 

 its present state, its revenue guarded, and justice administered 

 under the immediate supervision of the Assistant Resident (Capt. 

 Speedy), whilst, besides roads for the benefit of the miners and 

 traders in Larut, a road, which may in time connect Province "Wel- 

 lesley with Johor, has been begun, both in our newly acquired 

 territory in Krian and also in Larut, to give a direct road com- 

 munication between those districts and our own Settlements, whilst 

 another road to join Larut with Perak proper is also in course of 

 making ; and this also would form a joint in a great highway 

 through the Peninsula from Penang to Singapore. 



The Larut debts, already spoken of, incurred by the Mentri in 

 his vain attempts to put down the party fights of the Chinese in 

 Larut, are in the hands of a Committee of Enquiry. 



In Perak, which has a resident population of about 30,000 

 Malays, with numbers of Rajas and Chiefs, as was to be expected 

 there are those who prefer the law of " might being right *' to any 

 modification of that original principle, and these have taken up a 

 policy of grumbling discontent, with Rajas Ismail and Jitsof for 

 leaders. 



Ismail, though in conversation and correspondence he pro- 

 fesses it to be his only desire to follow the advice of the English 

 Government, has nevertheless practically assumed a position of 

 passive disregard of the new state of affairs, and, amongst Malays, 

 of being the aggrieved victim of ill-treatment at the hands of 

 those Chiefs who, having elected him Sultan, afterwards discarded 

 him. And in this course he is supported and advised, if not 

 instigated, by the Mentri and one or two lesser Chiefs, who, whilst 

 they were the followers of " Ismail the Sultan/' did many things 



