160 A JOURNEY IN THE MENANGKARAU STATES 
of three thousand souls inhabiting a valley which runs 
from west to east. Great part ol: the Jellabu territory is 
mountainous and entirely covered with jungle except the 
valley above mentioned, and 1 was told a few other small 
places where rice is cuhivated. The river of Jellabu which 
falls into that of Pahang begins to be navigable for small 
boats near the house of the lang Dipertuan of Jellabu. 
As this place is distant but two short days walk from the 
other place where the river of Sungey Ujong is also na¬ 
vigable, it follows, that the easiest way to go from Malacca 
to Pahang across the Peninsula would be to go from Ma¬ 
lacca to Sungey Ujong by the Lingy river, and from Jellabu 
to Pahang by the Jellabu river; but the journey could not 
he effected in a shorter time than twelve days, nz., from 
Malacca to Sungey Ujong six days, from Sungey tjong to 
Jellabu two days walk, and from Jellabu to Pahang fou-r 
or five days ; but it is to be remarked that the mountains 
which separate Jellabu from Sungey Ujong, render the 
communication between these two states very difficult, and 
I dare say dangerous, on account both of the steepness of 
the mountains and meeting with numerous precipices. 
The dull sight of the road which presents itself to the 
traveller when journeying upon these mountains, seeing to 
announce before hand the melancholy prospect of the coun¬ 
try which lies behind The soil of Jellabu is one of the 
poorest I have met with in the Malayan Peninsu’a, the 
valley I have before mentioned is itself barren in many 
places, and by no means presents an agreeable look. The 
difficulty of communication between that state and the 
neighbouring ones renders it entirely solitary; and its great 
distance both from the sea of Siam, and from the Straits of 
Malacca, makes its commerce of very little importance; 
it appears however that some tin mines are worked there, 
the produce of which finds its way to the Pahang market by 
the river. 
On our arrival at Jellabu we called upon the lang Di* 
pertuan, commonly named the Sultan. 
We could not see him at that moment; several supersti- * 
tious practices which were then performed, on the occasion 
of the Sultan’s son being sick, prevented our being allowed 
to enter the premises till the evening We remarked 
that all the doors by which the kampong was entered 
bore at their upper part a range of lanceolated leaves of a 
yellowish colour; the object of which, according t.o the 
explanation given to us by the Malays, was to prevent the 
