278 
FIVE DAYS IN NANING.* 
SECOND DAY. 
[ Wednesday, 10^A February , 1847-] 
We slept at Abdulrahman’s and next morning proceeded 
to Ganong Ayer Panas. Near Fort Lismore are a few small 
tombs where the officers who fell in the Naning war lie 
buried, and which help to perpetuate the remembrance of 
proceedings which cannot be viewed on any side without 
dissatisfaction and pain. A day’s intercourse with the people 
—a peaceful, rural race—had convinced me as much of the 
inhumanity as I had before been of the impolicy of the war. 
T1 e only apology that can be found for it is in the supposi¬ 
tion that those functionaries whose negociations and reports 
brought it on, laboured under an entire misconception of 
Naning and its inhabitants. A European travels with a sense 
of such absolute security amongst agricultural Malays, and 
is treated with so much deference and friendliness when his 
own manner is courteous and friendly, that it is hard to con¬ 
ceive that anything short of a supercilious behaviour, and a 
despotic disregard of rights and prejudices, could provoke 
them into an armed resistance of an European government. 
The truth is the Malays are essentially a peaceful and not 
a warlike people. It is their keen sensibility to injuries and 
their child-like attachment to their chiefs that incite them 
to war, but I Relieve the great mass of those who join the 
standards of the chiefs are not animated either by a warlike 
feeling or a love of fame, and would prefer remaining in 
their kampongs. The Malay, if left to himself, is indolent 
and unwilling to be roused out of his usual state of content¬ 
ed repose, but his prejudices, attachments and superstitions 
are deeply rooted, and may be easily worked upon. 
After crossing the valley we rose over a broad undulating 
hill, Bukit Jalatang,t which was at first open, but soon be¬ 
came enveloped in jungle, about twelve years old and thirty 
feet in height. After proceeding half way over this hill, 
Abdul rah man led me through the jungle on the left, and by 
a path which none but a Malay could have traced in the 
thick brushwood, to a hollow varying in breadth from 6 to 
30 leet, 8 to JO feet in depth, and filled with large leaved 
* Continued from p. 41. 
t The Jalatang is a small shrub the leaves of which sting the hand slightly. 
