LÂTAH
inquiry appeared to be the perpetrators, had been executed (the Sultan lending his own kris for the ceremony), I was sent to see that these “boyish amusements,” as His Highness called them, were not repeated. The place where the Sultan then lived was hardly a desirable residence, even from a Malay point of view, and it has for years now been almost deserted. Bandar Tèrmása, as it was grandiloquently styled, was a collection of huts on a mud flat enclosed between the Langat and Jugra rivers. It was only seven miles from the sea, and at high tide mast of the place was under water.
With me there went twenty-five Malay police from Malacca, and we lived all together in an old stockade on the bank of the Langat river. Whether it was the mosquitoes, which for numbers and yenom could not be matched, or whether it was the evil reputation of the place for deeds of violence is needless to inquire, but the police were seized with panic and had to be replaced by another batch from Singapore, selected not so much on account of their virtues as their so-called vices, The exchange was satisfactory, for whatever sins they committed they showed no signs of panic.
Later on I was encouraged by the statement that
Bandar Těrmasa, for all its unpromising appearance,
67
