JOURNEY ACROSS THE MALAY PENINSULA. tl 
people, and did not get away from Kuala Semantan till 9 a.a. 
At 10.30 a.m. Imam Prange Pénghilu, a great Captain and 
headman of some influence, met me and invited me to go and 
spend the night at his house. I found he lived at a place 
called Smau, two hours’ walk inland from Kuadla Dum, on the 
right bank of the river, and, as I should have lost a whole day 
by complying with his invitation and should have had to carry 
all our baggage inland and back again, I begged him to excuse 
me. He said he asked me to go to shew his friendship and 
good feeling, and I am afraid he was rather disappointed, 
but there was nothing to see at his place, and I could hardly 
spare the time. 
At 11.30 a.m. stopped at Kudla Dum for breakfast, after 
which I had a long talk with the Imam Prang and his people. 
They all complained of excessive taxation and the want of 
settled laws and customs. The Imam Prang told me that 
every buffalo exported is lable to a tax of $3, and this goes to 
the Ton Gisau, though formerly he himself received it. At 
Pénjum, there is a gambling farm, which pays the Tou Kaya 
$900 a month, and that chief also gets a tax of one-tenth on all 
imported cloth. A great deal of rice is imported from Kélan- 
tan, also silk sarongs. A good many sarongs are, however, 
manufactured in Pahang, chiefly at the Pékan. 
At 2.30 p.m. saying good-bye to the Imam Prang, we conc 
again and still meeting occasional rapids, we soon passed 
into a magnificent open “country, where the scenery, though 
different from that in the Ulu, 1s in its way equally fine. ‘The 
river widens into a broad stream, with a partly dry channel, 
shewing what a considerable river it must be in the rains. 
The bed is full of snags, and nothing whatever seems to 
have been done to it, but were it cleared, there is water enough 
for a launch, though of course nothing of the kind could 
get here owing to the Jeram Bésu rapid, which cannot be 
passed by boat even going down-stream. There seems to 
be an immense tract of level ground here. I have seen no- 
thing like it elsewhere at such a distance from the coast. I 
aes, been told that cocoa-nuts will not flourish at over fifty 
miles from the sea-shore, but that is a mistake, for we have 
seen them everywhere. 
At 83.30 p.m. we passed Kula Chenier and Tou Baxar 
