called tanjak. At her belt she carried a kris, and also, a smaller dagger, called a 'pepper-crusher' in the vernacular, and in her hand she held a drawn sword, which she brandished as she walked. At her back came some three hundred women, moving down the street with that queer half-tripping, half-running gait, which Malay women always affect when they go abroad in a crowd at the heel of their Princess. The way in which they run into and press against one another, on such occasions, together with the little quick short steps they take, always reminds me of young chickens trying to seek shelter under their mother's wing. The army was wonderfully and fearfully armed. Some of the more fortunate had spears and daggers; one or two carried old swords; but the majority were armed with weapons borrowed from the cook-house. The axes and choppers, used for breaking up firewood, were the best of these arms, but the number of these was limited, most of Tŭngku Aminâh's gallant three hundred being provided with no better weapons than the kandar sticks, on which water pails are carried; spits made of wood hardened in the fire; cocoa-nut scrapers lashed to sticks; and a few old pocket-knives and fish-spears. What they lacked in equipment, however, they made up in noise, one and all combining to raise an indescribable and deafening babel.
As they halted before Tŭngku Indut's house, the shrill screams of defiance from three hundred dainty throats pierced my ear-drums like a steam siren, and they were all so marvellously noisy, brave, and defiant, that, in spite of an occasional girlish giggle from one or another of them, I began to fear there would be bad trouble before the dawn. So wild was their excitement, and so maddening was the din they made, that, though Tŭngku Aminâh shrieked louder than any one of them, she could not make herself heard above the tumult; and it was not until she had scratched the faces of those nearest to her, and smitten others with the flat of her sword, that she succeeded in reducing her followers to even a partial silence. Then she beat upon the barred door of Tŭngku Indut's house with her naked weapon, and cried shrilly to her brother:—
'Come forth, Indut! Come forth, if thou art in truth the son of the same father as myself! Come forth!'
'Come forth!' echoed the army, and the deafening din of defiance broke out once more, and was again with difficulty repressed by Tŭngku Aminâh.
'Come forth!' she shrilled once more, 'come forth that I may rip thy belly, and cause thy entrails to gush out upon the ground!'
'Come forth, thou accursed and ill-omened one!' echoed the army, with the unanimity of Pickwick's thirty boarders.
Indut, however, did not show any signs of coming forth; but when the women had screamed themselves hoarse and out of breath, his gruff voice sounded from within the house, like the growl of a wild beast, after all that shrill feminine yelping.
'Go hence, Iang!' he shouted, 'get thee to thy bed, thou foolish one; disturb not one who desires to slumber, and waken not the fowls with thy unmaidenly shouting.'
Now, when Tŭngku Aminâh heard these words she dropped her sword, and beat upon the door with her little bare hands, weeping and screaming in a perfect ecstasy of rage, and showering curses and imprecations on her brother. The army joined in the torrent of abuse, and a very pretty set of phrases were sent spinning through the clean night air. At length, Tŭngku Aminâh, finding that she only bruised her hands, again took up her sword, and, as soon as she could make herself heard, renewed her challenge to her brother to come forth.
When this scene had continued for about twenty minutes, and I was beginning to fear that the Devil would prompt Tŭngku Aminâh to fire her brother's house, and that I should get burned out also—suffering, as the Malays says, like the woodpecker in the falling tree—a sudden and unexpected turn was given to affairs, which speedily brought things to an abrupt conclusion.
During one of the pauses for breath, indulged in by the clamouring women, Tŭngku Indut was heard to arise from his couch with great noise and deliberation. A hushed silence immediately fell upon the assembled women, and, in the stillness, Tŭngku Indut's words were distinctly heard by all of us.
'Âwang!' he said, naming one of his followers, 'Âwang! Bring me my sword!'
That was all, but it was enough and to spare. A shrill shriek was raised by the listening women—a shriek, this time, of fear and not of defiance—and in a moment the army of three hundred ladies was in full flight. Never was there such a rout. They tumbled over, and trampled upon one another in their frantic desire to escape, and maimed one another, as they fought their way up the narrow roadway, in their panic. All respect for persons, rank, or position, was completely lost sight of, commoners pushing past râjas in their deadly fear of being the hindermost, who is the proverbial prey of the pursuing devil. Too breathless to scream, and sweating with fear and exertion, they scuffled up the street, to the sound of rending garments and pattering feet, nor did they rest until the palace was regained, and the doors securely barred.
On the King's return, the dancing girls were, of course, surrendered; and I do not like to think what was the measure of bodily pain and suffering, that these dainty creatures were called upon to pay as the price of their escapade. It was a sore subject with Tŭngku Indut, too, and he and his father were not on speaking terms, on this account, for near a twelvemonth after.
As for Tŭngku Aminâh, she is as truculent as ever, and bears a great reputation for courage among her fellow country-women. It is not every girl, they say, who would so boldly have attacked; and of the retreat, which only a few of us witnessed, no mention is ever made.
One has heard of the Women's Rights Meeting in Boston, which was broken up in confusion by the untimely appearance of three little mice; and of that other meeting, in which the aid of the Chairwoman's husband and brothers had to be sought, in order to eject a solitary derisive man, who successfully defied the assembled emancipated females to move him from his position; but neither of these stories seems to me to illustrate the inherent feebleness of women, when unaided by the ruder sex, quite as forcibly as does the pleasant story of Tŭngku Aminâh and her brother, Tŭngku Indut.
IN COCK-PIT AND BULL-RING
| There's joy in all sport, no matter the sort, In each game that is fought for and won; There's joy in the skill, that helps to a kill, Be the weapon, rod, spear, or gun. There's joy in the chase, in the rush of a race, In all that is fierce and strong; There's joy in the strife, that is war to the knife, Let those who will, brand it as wrong. But no joy that we know, in our life here below, For man, or for bird, or for cattle, Can come within sight of the gorgeous delight, The glorious frenzy of battle! |
Taking them by and large the Malays have no bowels. Physical pain, even if endured by human beings, excites in them but little sympathy or compassion, and to the beasts that perish they are often almost as wantonly cruel as an English drayman. The theory that men owe any duties to the lower animals, is one which the Malays cannot be readily made to understand; and the idea of cruelty to a beast can only be expressed in their language by a long and roundabout sentence. The Malays can hardly be blamed for this perhaps, seeing that, even among our immaculate selves, a consideration for animals is of comparatively modern origin, and the people of the Peninsula, as I have been at some pains to show, are in their ideas on many subjects, much what our ancestors were some hundreds of years ago. A few animals, however, are hedged about and protected by some ancient superstition, the origin of which is now totally forgotten, but even these do not escape scot free. Thus, it is a common belief among Malays, that, if a cat is killed, he who takes its life, will in the next world, be called upon to carry and pile logs of wood, as big as cocoa-nut trees, to the number of the hairs on the beast's body. Therefore cats are not killed; but, if they become too daring in their raids on the hen-coop, or the food rack, they are tied to a
