LÂTAH
thatch roof, and no doors. Outside it was a high watch-tower of the same materials, but the ladder to it had fallen down. Of roads there were none, but a mud path ran through the stockade from river bank to village, distant some 300 yards. My own accommodation was a cot borrowed from the Hart and slung between two posts, while the men slept on the walls of the stockade.
The place had drawbacks other than mosquitoes, for the public path ran through it, the tide at high water completely covered the floor, and the log walls were full of snakes. The state of the sur- roundings will best be understood when I say that during the many months I lived there I did not wear boots outside the stockade, because there was nothing to walk upon but deep mud, and that the only water fit to use was contained in a well or pond a quarter of a mile off, to which I walked every day to bathe.
With the second batch of police had come an
European inspector, and he and I were the only
white men in the country.
Amongst the twenty-five police were two men of the name of Kasim; they were both natives of Amboina, but very different in disposition, and they
were known among their comrades as Kasim Běsar
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