The old Kedah-Patani Trade-route. 
By A. W. Hamitton. 
A glance at the map will shew that the whole length of the 
boundary between Kedah and Siam from the Perak border to the 
Perlis frontier consists of irregular masses and chains of hills 
rising in places to a height of more than 3,000 feet. 
The actual boundary is an imaginary line between certain 
fixed points on the crests of these hills following the watersheds 
so that all streams flowing westwards are within Kedah territory 
and these flowing to the east within the dominions of Siam. 
The whole of this frontier region is covered with a thick forest 
growth which renders it almost impassable except in certain natur- 
ally favoured regions to the passage of human beings. 
In the course of time man in his journeyings has discovered 
the easiest passages through this chain of hills and has gradually 
confined himself to certain definite tracks which usually follow the 
beds of streams until some suitable vantage point is reached for 
crossing the divide. 
From very early times it must have been known that the 
easiest and most direct trade route between the thriving Malay 
States of Patani and Kedah was through the defile known as Gént- 
ing Pahat. The chiselled-out pass (Boundary Stone No. 34), aad 
until the completion of the railway from Patani to Senggora and 
its continuation thence to Ikedah this route was still in vogue for 
the droving of cattle and the passage of Patani field labourers to. 
KXedah territory for the rice harvest. 
As this route in its latter stages has seldom been traversed by 
Europeans and as the rapid development of road communication 
in Kedah may at any time bring it into prominence again a short 
description of the route as it was in June of this year may not be 
without interest. 
Leaving Alor Star in a motor car a short hour’s run along a 
new and good road brings the traveller to Kuala Nerang twenty 
miles distant where the road ends on a bluff a hundred feet above 
the river and some two hundred yards below the confluence of the 
Padang Térap and Pédu streams. Kuala Nérang is a growing 
village and the headquarters of the whole district of Padang Terap: 
which stretches as far as the Siamese frontier. 
Jour. Straits Brarch R. A. Soc., No. 86 1922. 
