238 JAMBOO AND THE RIVER SPIRIT. CHAPTER XVIII. Jamboo frightened by a River Spirit.-The Aborigines of Malayia.-Malayan Superstitions.-An "Untoo," or Spirit, seen. My Credulity taxed.-The Spirits of the Jungle.On Superstitions in general.-The Charms of Superstition. -Musquitoes and Sand-flies.-The Village on Fire.Flaming Cocoa-nut Trees. Intentional Destruction.Traces of Man rapidly obliterated in the East. - THE men soon brought off all the meat from the dead buffalo, and as there was much more than we could eat at once, the surplus was cut into thin shreds and hung up about the vessel, so that on the morrow the action of the sun should convert it into what, in South America, is styled "charqui," or dried beef. Towards sunset, the sampan returned down the river with only half a load of shell-fish, Jamboo and his crew having been frightened off the fishing-ground by what Sutoo, the quarter-master, assured me was an Untoo, or evil spirit. He explained to me, that while busy up to their knees in water, an odd noise had been heard under the overhang JAMBOO AND THE RIVER SPIRIT. 239 ing trees on the opposite bank: looking in that direction, they saw a man's head come up out of the water; the face was covered with hair, and it eyed them in a fierce, threatening manner; they shouted, jumped into the sampan, and fired at the creature ; it dived for a minute, and then appeared again, grinning horribly. Jamboo and his men decided that it was a demon, and thought it better to decamp whilst their skins were whole. I laughed heartily at their fears, and tried to explain to them that it might be a seal. Jamboo, however, stoutly insisted that no seals were ever seen in Malayia; and as I found myself in the minority, I quietly acquiesced in the supposition that it was an unclean spirit. Jadee said, if not the Old Gentleman, that it must be one of the wild men who could imitate the appearance of monkeys or apes, the cry of birds, or the howlings of wild beasts, so as even to deceive animals. These wild men are the sad remnants of an aboriginal race of diminutive negroes, who, at one time, were more numerous, but are now only found in small isolated parties, in the most inaccessible fastnesses of Malayia, living amongst the branches of trees, to avoid the snakes and beasts of prey. They are human beings in their most degraded formwithout religion, without any acknowledged form of 240 ABORIGINES OF MALAYIA.. government, and only gifted with animal instincts and passions. When found or caught by the Malays, they are tied up or caged just as we should treat chimpanzees. I argued that it was very unlikely such creatures should be down so close to the sea, and, least of all, would they voluntarily show themselves to our men. Jadee, however, suggested that the movements of large bodies of armed men had disturbed them in their haunts; besides, that at one season of the year they were known to wander towards the sea-shore, either for the sake of procuring salt, or because shell-fish was easily procurable. Under these circumstances, I was not sorry Jamboo had returned; for these wild men use the sumpit, or blow-pipe, with fearful skill, and blow small poisoned arrows, a few inches long, with sufficient force to destroy even birds upon the wing. Sailors of every part of the world have a strong spice of the romantic and superstitious in their composition, and the Malays are decidedly no exception to the rule. Indeed, the wild and enterprising life the majority of them lead, and the many curious phenomena peculiar to the seas and islands of their beautiful archipelago, could never be accounted for by an uneducated but observant and highly imaginative MALAYAN SUPERSTITIONS. 241 race, by any other than supernatural agency. Often, during the evenings of the blockade, had Jamboo recounted to me strange tales of Malayian history: in all of them fiction and myth were deliciously blended with truth, and facts could be easily appealed to in corroboration of all he recounted. The natural and supernatural, the miracles of the Romish church, Hindoo mythology, and Mahometan fables were rolled one into the other, making tales of thrilling interest, which I cared not to unravel even had I been able to do so. There were proofs by the thousand amongst these poor fellows of that connection with the world of spirits which it seems to be the desire of man in every stage of civilization to assure himself of; and I must say, I half began to believe in their assertions upon that head; their faith was so earnest and child-like, that it worked strongly upon even my own tutored convictions to the contrary. Children never clustered round a winter fire at home with more intense credulity and anxious sympathy, than did my poor Malays to listen to some woeful legend, derived from the blood-stained annals of the Portuguese or Dutch rule in Malayia and its islands. As an instance of their childlike belief in spirits, and of the strange way in which such an idea is sup R 242 MALAYAN SUPERSTITIONS. in ported by optical delusions common to these latitudes, I may here recount an event which no more than amused me at the time, although the strange way which Jamboo and his men swore to having this day seen an "Untoo" brought it back forcibly to my mind. Just after the blockade commenced, in December of the previous year, my gun-boat was lying one night close to the southern point of Quedah River. The mist fell for a while like small rain upon us, but afterwards, at about ten o'clock, changed into fine weather, with heavy murky clouds overhead, through the intervals of which we had momentary gleams of light from a young moon. The air was cold and damp, and I naturally sought shelter under my tentshaped mat, although until midnight I considered myself responsible for a vigilant look-out being kept. About eleven o'clock, my attention was called to the look-out man, who, seated upon the bow-gun, was spitting violently, and uttering some expressions as if in reproof or defiance, and continued to do so very frequently. Ignorant at that time of the character of my crew, such a peculiar proceeding made me restless. Presently I saw another man go up to him; he pointed in the direction of the jungle, and both repeated the conduct which had attracted my |