MALAY SKETCHES
parts of Perak it is rare to ever meet a lâtah person. Again, speaking generally, the disease seems to be more common amongst the people of Amboina, in Netherlands India, than those of Java, Sumatra or the Malay Peninsula. In both cases heredity is pro- bably accountable for the result, whatever may have been the original cause to produce the affliction in certain places more than iu others. I can only speak of my own experience and what I have personally seen, for no English authority appears to have studied the matter or attempted to either observe lâtah people, diagnose the disease (if it is one), search for its cause or attempt to cure it. I can vouch for facts but nothing more.
In 1874 I was sent in H.M.S. Harl to reside with the Sultan of Selangor. Though His High- ness’s personal record was one of which he might be proud, for he was said to have killed ninety-nine men (sa’ râtus kúrang sâtu) with his own hand, his State was not altogether a happy one, for it had been the fighting-ground of several ambitious young Rajas for some years, An unusually hideous piracy, personally conducted by one of the Sultan’s own sons, and committed on a Malacea trading vessel, had necessitated a visit from the China fleet, and
when the perpetrators, or those who after due
66
