The Mai Daràt, or the Upland People, is one of the tribes inhabiting the highlands of the Malay Peninsula. At the edge of the plains some of them own a sort of allegiance to the Malays, with whom they do business; but as you penetrate farther and higher, they are found to be more and more wild, until in their secluded strongholds they are totally unapproachable.

Across the railway from the club veranda we see the mountains, the Cleft Mountain rising to a peak 6,000 feet above us, Kerban 2,000 feet higher, with many others showing a zigzag outline against the sky. In early morning as the day rises over them they are a mere screen of blue, unsubstantial and without perspective. As the sun warms them they appear to solidify, and by afternoon have developed great shaggy sides with rolling convexities and hollows. It is then you may see on some distant slope a speck, a brown blur, which at night becomes a spark of fire. The Mai Daràt are not amenable to the regulations of the Forest Department, and burn clearings for their hill crops where fancy leads them, as often as good fortune or an unwonted providence on their part has given them a handful of seed padi or maize to sow. These primeval gardeners are not those wildest people I spoke of just now; they have entered into the heritage of Adam, and are not altogether inaccessible to their fellow-men. Separated from us by twenty miles and twenty thousand years, their old-world beacons answer back the flare of our gas-lamps. We look across the gulf at each other without comprehension, but the desire for fuller understanding is all on our side.

I am acquainted with an Italian gentleman who has accepted a contract

under Government to keep up a bridlepath. One day it may be widened into a road; perhaps a railway may hereafter replace its devious course. Meanwhile it penetrates an uninhabited and unknown country. Here Signor Virgil, as I shall call him, has won intimacy with the wild people by means which will become apparent in the course of my story, which is that of a week I spent among them, an uninspired Dante under his guidance.

As often as business brings him from the jungle into the township, the signor occupies a Chinese house in the native quarter. It was there I went to call on him. The street-door opened on a barn-like room, empty except for halfa-dozen swathes of rattan piled in a corner, in apparent charge of which a small fluffy black bear scrabbled about on the brick floor. Safely past him and up a break-neck flight of stairs, I found myself in what looked like an overflow annexe of the British Museum.

There

were knives and bludgeons and weapons of all sorts, from every part of the Malayan Archipelago, arranged round the walls. Tables, chairs and floor were strewn with lumps of different kinds of gum and gutta-percha; there were butterflies in cases, and beetles and stuffed birds; there were specimens of ebony as well as of many other sorts of timber, both cut and polished, and with leaf and bark. There were in fact samples of every kind of thing that a man who lived by trade in the jungle might hope to make money out of.

In the middle of it all sat the signor in singlet and Chinese trousers playing upon a flute. When you first behold the signor you can think of nothing but his mop of golden curls; the humor of his broad mouth and the kindliness of

his dark eyes are revealed later. "Oh, I have a chance!" he declared courteously as I came up; by which he meant my visit was an unexpected pleasure. He is indeed no linguist; the more surprising his influence over his mountain friends. He extends his friendship to all who take an interest in them, and before I left he had cheerfully promised that I should accompany him on his return to their country.

A few days later we started at early morning, with the sun rising and shining into the dewdrops and gossamers, our baggage in rickishas, ourselves in a horse-gharry. We passed the racecourse, cemetery and club, and said good-bye to the station for a week.

As we proceeded along our nine-mile drive, the road became more and more lumpy, as unfrequented roads of granite do. Then lines of grass appeared between the ruts; a little farther, and it was altogether overgrown. The cloud-capped mountain had at the beginning of the drive made,, with its many ranges, a blue background to the verdant scenery of the plain, but now it was quite eclipsed by the swelling hills at its base as we drove in among them; and when the road ended suddenly and the six-foot unmetalled bridle-path began, we were already at the hem of the untrodden forest. Here we saw the first of the little people, whom at this point Signor Virgil desired me no longer to call Sakai, as is our custom, that being the name for them we have borrowed from the Malays. The word means slave, and hurts their feelings. They call them. selves by many names, but Mai Darat, folk of the Upper Country, as often as not. At the hut of a Malay and his wife, whose solitary dwelling marks the termination of the cart-road, were gathered a dozen or more of them come to sell rice-a proceeding which, to my unenlightened mind, seemed highly satisfactory; it appeared to me

to be trade and the beginning of wisdom. But when I expressed this opinion in broken English, Malay and French of Stratfordatte-Bowe, which in combination formed the vehicle of our interchange of ideas, the signor would have none of it-called the transaction le vol, tout court. Its essence, according to him, was as follows: the Malays make an advance of tobacco, betel-nut, lime and salt, also enough rice for a banquet, and to leave something over for planting. And so this unsophisticated community becomes their debtor, and the Malays acquire a lien on the crop when it ripens. The extent of their indebtedness is a matter far beyond the mental capacity of the hill people; they see the Malay write it down in a book and go on their way with light hearts; nor do they give the matter another thought, until the time comes to bring in their harvest and obtain a farther advance. It is easy to see which party is likely to make the better bargain. I imagined, however, that should the burden prove intolerable it could be resolved by flight; the hill people had only to change their habitation and be off light as air. But my guide assured me that this was a misconception of their character, which is, according to him, most sincere and guileless. "O Madonna, no! Padi belong the Malay. I pay-a him! O sure!" That is how he anticipated they would reply to so disturbing a proposal. But blessed and wonderful is the balance of things. This particular Malay and his wife were reported to be blind gamblers, so you may be sure that the padi reaped in unrighteousness brought them no good, but between Fantan and Shap-chu-yat quickly disappeared within the gently smiling jaws of an alien from the Flowery Kingdom.

While we waited at the ninth mile for the coolies to rearrange and handle our baggage, frequent parties of the Mai Darat kept coming in with jungle

produce to barter, and departing. Some brought dozens of the fruit of the petài tree, like enormous bean-pods, which is very welcome among the Malays as an appetizer to their rice. Others brought the red onion-shaped roots of the kolubi to the Malay emporium. They marched in with a fine free tread, leaning somewhat forward, stepping rather high, with their eyes on the ground three yards ahead of them, in single file. They would walk so along the widest and flattest causeway in the world; it is the habit which the treading their shoulder-narrow tracks in the forests, all bestrewn with stumbling-blocks, has bred in their bones. The men were almost naked; the women's clothing consisted of a petticoat reaching from hip to knee, and a wide cloth hung with a knot at the right shoulder across the breast and back, so arranged that in the fold behind she could carry her baby or other wares. Even among these "tamer" Sakai-I translate here and throughout the arrogant expression of the Malays, by which they mean a greater degree of subserviency to their influence-even among these the upper garment seems worn for use, or perhaps fashion, rather than as demanded by modesty; for I observed that some dispensed with it altogether without making themselves conspicuous, and those who used it did not hesitate to take it off, or, which came to the same thing so far as appearances went, to twist it round, when they wished to get at its contents.

Nearly all these people could speak fluent Malay, which led me at first to look for a degree of knowledge in them that they by no means possessed. Just as we were starting, there stepped out from the steep underwood below us a party of three, a gaunt old man with the flank and loins of a wolf and the face of a John the Baptist, and two girls who he said were his sisters.

This was a manifest impossibility, as one looked about fourteen and the other not more than ten. All three carried small plaited sacks full of padi. I asked the old man what his price was. "Twenty dollars a gallon," he answered promptly, looking straight at me and speaking in a melancholy deep voice. I thought he meant twenty gallons a dollar and asked him so, but he only looked puzzled and hopeless, and made as if to pass on. My guide then told me that he did not mean anything in particular, neither knowing how many dollars the number twenty might represent, nor having any exact idea of the capacity of a gallon. (Later on I asked of a man his price for a boar's tusk which he had hung about his neck. He replied, "Five dollars," in a tone which seemed to say, And not a penny less. I tendered twenty cents, which he accepted with great delight.) My guide took a photograph of the elder girl. You could see her heart ticking between her ribs as the monster with black hood and three sharp legs ambled into position before her. But she stood her ground.

You know what coolies are. Not before noon did we get off. The people who made the bridle-path gouged it out of the skin of mould covering the steep sides of the granite mountains. As we passed from one water-shed to another sometimes the fall of the land was at our left, sometimes at our right hand; but for most of the way, there on the one side was the steep descent to the river, humming below us in rapids and cascades; there on the other side, above the bracken-clad cutting, towered the centenarian forest. Now, without attentive nursing such a path could not long exist. Trees fall across it; after a day's rain, when every rivulet plays torrent, it is torn grievouslysometimes a dozen yards ooze away between sunset and sunrise. So Signor Virgil is given a contract, and keeps

twenty-five miles of this road in repair. It will be easily understood how in a country like this the labor-supply is his chief difficulty. His solution thereof was manifest before we were gone many miles.

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Where the road goes large to circumvent a granite boulder, we came around the corner suddenly upon mighty tree which had fallen across the path. Six feet at least in diameter, it lay among the splintered timber and bamboo, in a death-bed of its own strewing, a gray, smooth, unbroken bole, fifty yards in length, with the river snarling among the branches at its head, deep below us, and a rood of earth hanging above on its upturned roots. Here was an obstacle; but already a family of the Mai Darat, men, women and children, were assailing it with their biting thin-lipped hatchets. And what I noticed also was that an orchid, as big as a rhododendron-bush, had been torn from the head of the fallen giant in defiance of the Krengga ants, and lay with its great yellow blossoms freaked with jet ready as an offering to the mender of the by-way. "Bor" (good), says he; "mai bor" (good men); and they seemed very well content. There it was I made my first essay in the use of their language: "Pe singòt" (Don't be afraid), a very useful word to know if you wish to deal with this timid folk. To every gang we met, the signor gave a word of praise and a joke with a lump of tobacco, telling them to come in to us at our destination; and while we legged it along he told me a great deal about his people, and especially he enlarged upon his theory, which was not after all a very new one, though he seemed to think it So. It was the commonplace of a hundred years ago, the primordial virtues of the savage and the degeneracy,of our latter-day civilization. You have noted it in Rasselas, that blameless Abyssinian; you have it also in the

"Cainballes" of Michael, Lord of Montaigne.

It is a nation . . . that hath no kinde of trafficke, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no use of service, of riches, or of povertie; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle; no respect of kindred, but common, no apparell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falshood, treason, dissimulations, covetousnes, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them.

Even the Chinese Classic for children begins in its delightful attractive way

Man at the origin was of a Wholesome Disposition; yet although at first he Held Closely to this Original, in after days he Fell away therefrom.

My Virgil knows nothing about modern anthropology and sticks to the old idea. They are-a primi-tìve," he says, swinging his arms with an air of enthusiasm. According to him they do not steal, they do not lie, they do not break any of the commandments, and when they get anything to work for, they do work.

When the afternoon was getting late we reached our destination at the nineteenth mile, and pitched our camp in the unfurnished shanty which Government has built for the accommodation of chance travellers on the bank of the brawling Jura brook, a sight of the clear waters of which, as we crossed it on two long bamboos set in crosspieces, was enough to convince me that no tin-mining of any sort was taking place within its drainage area above this point. Indeed we are here in a region aloof from all commerce, where the sole traders are the sparse upland families who keep clean Virgil's path for him. The shanty, which is no more than a zinc roof, a floor of split

bamboo, and two cubicles planked off at one end, lies in a little amphitheatre of a hundred yards across, with the tree-tops rising so steep all round it that the sun (I found) did not rise over them till past eight and seldom broke through the white mist for another hour. Pushing our way through the bushes of the overgrown compound, we were soon installed, while the Chinese servants, who appeared to enjoy the novelty, went straight to the cookhouse behind, and entered upon their duties. By this time it was too late to do more than despatch a messenger to the nearest family, about four miles farther up the valley. So we slept warm and comfortable in blankets, and free from mosquitoes, it being there about 2,000 feet above sea-level.

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People who sleep nearly naked in a bleak mountain unsheltered from the saturated winds of heaven, reject the appointed road to health, wealth and wisdom, and cower melancholy monkeys over their fire till the morning sun has dispersed the clouds. Consequently, not until past ten did our guests appear, trooping in a long procession over the bamboo bridge below our veranda. Do not, accustomed to Malays, expect your hillman to loaf casually up to your door and then to sit down, looking as if he had come through sheer absence of mind, and had not very likely planned his visit for a week beforehand. Such are not the ways of the unsophisticated. These people marched straight up to the ladder, "So like-a take a forteresse," as my guide put it; and sat down in a ring on the floor. First there were Pa Jumat and his wife Pa Stoe, a venerable couple according to the generations of the jungle, who must have been getting on for sixty. He, probably inured by lifelong habit, declined all clothing, and, from his tousled head of faded hair to his battered feet, had no covering for the skin that lay in

wrinkles upon him but a pair of pink bathing-drawers. His wife wore her hair plain-that is to say, matted by nature, and grizzled and indescribably dirty; and now, since I like these people, and desire only good to report of them, I will say once and for all that they were all indescribably dirty as to their hair. It is true that the younger Women must coquettishly have combed theirs, otherwise nature reigned supreme. And another thing-they do not wash at all, ever. Some of the dirt rubs or flakes off them, and some does not. For my part, I think they are quite right. A poor, cold game is washing in cold water without soapand drying yourself on leaves, as every one will agree who has played it. The old lady, whose expression was severe but not unpleasing, wore a khaki jacket, fastened at the neck with a simple mother-of-pearl button, also a cotton Malay sarong.

Then there was their son Urup-a strapping young fellow of five feet oneor two. (It is curious how quickly a man adjusts his standards to those of the people he is judging.) Urup prided himself on his travels, spoke Malay fluently, which none of his companions could; he was, moreover, very proud of this accomplishment, and of his easy, confident manner with Europeans. was not long before we were on intimate terms, and he told me a great deal; and when he had nothing new totell, he repeated himself unblushingly. To him I am indebted for most of my knowledge that was not derived from the signor. He wore a pair of striped! pyjamas cut short at the knee.

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Urup had two wives, Pa Rousày and Pa Ntoné, who sat shoulder to shoulder together in my circle of new acquaintance. At the time it occurred to me this might be from sheer nervousness. not from goodwill, but later I found them to be very good friends. They wore no coats, and were clad only in: