MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. Ii3 



Sakei to become civilized,, even so much as the Malay of the 

 interior; he is never happy except while roaming in his native 

 forest, and, although he will eat rice and smoke tobacco, which 

 he can only get from the Malays, he rushes off after satisfying 

 his craving for the weed (of which he is inordinately fond) 

 and does not appear again for months. 



" The second occasion of meetiug these people was at the 

 head of the Baling river, a branch of the Muda, near Pa- 

 taui, where I had the good fortune to come across a tribe 

 under the protection of the Raja of Kedah, by whose orders 

 they roamed unmolested through his country. I received a 

 visit from the chief aud a party of his people, men, women, 

 and children numbering in all a dozen, and for a week had 

 daily intercourse with them. The members of this tribe differ- 

 ed greatly from those near the Selama river, for they were 

 of the Semang race for the most part. The chief himself, 

 who had received the title of " datu " or chief from the raja 

 was a mau of no common intelligence ; besides his own lan- 

 guage, which is different from any I have ever read of, he 

 spoke Malay and Siamese. Dressed in the sarong of the Ma- 

 lays, at a distance it was impossible to detect that he was 

 not \ of that race; but on close inspection be bore all the 

 evidences of his extraction, and especially that restlessness of 

 the eye which, as I said before, is so sure a sign of the de- 

 nizon of the forest. Amongst his followers were two Bro- 

 thers, named Gadiug (or Joory) and Buloo (Bamboo) whose ap- 

 pearance struck me very much. About twenty-three and twenty- 

 five years of age respectively, these men were perfect specimens 

 of manhood. Five feet ten or eleven in height, their limbs were 

 symmetrical to a degree ; their features, finely cut and intelli- 

 gent, were positively good ; their bodies, perfectly formed, ren- 

 dered their movements particularly graceful, and I must admit 

 to being envious of their fine proportions and " general air of 

 " robust health. They were a kind of body guard of their Datu, 

 " and he was evidently proud of them, and justly so." 



Some interesting particulars, though with fewer details, have 

 also been published in the Official Reports of Mr. Swettenham 

 (April 1875), who encountered some tribes of the Sakei in Ulu 

 Slim ; Mr. Daly who came across them in the upper part of the 

 Ulu Perak (June 1875) ; and Captain Speedy who eucountered 

 other tribes shortly afterwards in the Bidor district, nearly 100 

 miles off. 



